H1 and t??

[Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen]

On Mon, 19 Apr 1999, Patrick C. Ryan wrote:

> Dear Jens and IEists:

>  ----- Original Message -----
> From: Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen <jer at cphling.dk>
> Sent: Friday, April 16, 1999 12:50 PM

>  <snip>

> > The IE system has been basically correctly reconstructed by Cowgill in
> > Evid.f.Laryng. as

> > *eg' *tu    *we:   *yu:   *wey  *yu:s (nom.)
> > *me  *t(w)e *nH3we *uH3we *nsme *usme (acc.)
[...]

> One of the greatest problems in linguistic studies is the overeager facility
> with which anomalies are explained with an unjustified mechanism like that
> above: "simple sound change".  There is not the slightest shred of evidence
> for *mwe in IE.

Except that one expects it in the light of the alternants *te/*twe and
*se/*swe, and that *mwe could not continue to live if it ever has.

> And, in fact, suggesting its (*mwe) former presence obscures a better
> analysis of the existing facts.

Not if the analysis is done my way, in which case the form is needed.

> Is it not true that the majority of IEists would subscribe to the idea,
> which has been advanced by Beekes, that the IE nominal nominative developed
> out of an earlier ergative, in form derived from the genitive? And that,
> therefore, the nominal accusative, earlier an absolutive, represents the
> basal form?

I don't know about opinion statics in the population of IE-ists, nor would
I be rank them higher than arguments based on facts. IE itself combines
the nom. *-s with the thematic vowel to form *-os, but that of the gen. to
form *-es +-yo, which indicates that the two sibilants were not identical;
in addition, the gen. morpheme had a vowel (*-os) and formed a weak case,
while the nom.sg. ended in pure *-s (perhaps once voiced). Even so,
however, we cannot exclude that they are _ultimately_ two different
variants of the same original entity. - In the inflection of the IE
pronouns the acc. plainly has a morpheme which is absent in the nom. - but
all the weak cases are based on the accusative. In this, PIE has a system
differing from all other PIE inflection and looking more like Modern Indic
or Tocharian. This is not an ergative system, but there may or may not
have been one elsewhere in the morphology beside it.

> Now I know some will quibble over whether or not the same logic should apply
> to pronouns, and yes, I am aware of what seems to be a more conservative
> retention of older inflections in the pronouns, but, based on the experience
> we have we languages around the world, there is, IMHO, absolutely no
> justification for separating nominal and pronominal developments absolutely.

In English you must: What's the "me-form" of _house_? What's the
s-genitive of _I_?

> On this basis, it is rather easy to see that the *basal* forms of the 1st
> and 2nd persons, in the singular and plural, are *me, *te, *ne, *ye.  There
> is no necessity of reconstructing dual forms for earliest IE.

Then why are they there? Why does Old Germanic agree with Old Indic in
this respect? By chance?

> Apparently before this inflection (or particle),  an alternative form for
> the first person, analyzable as *He (demonstrative) + *g{^}V (meaning
> unknown or disputed), suppleted *me for the ergative or later nominative,
> making a *mwe totally unnecessary as a nominative/ergative although we can
> surely see it in zero-grade as the Hittite enclitic -mu --- an additional
> reason for regarding a "simple sound change" (*mew -> *me) as unnecessary
> and ill-advised.

Since -mu is the enclitic of ammuk 'me' it has every likelihood of having
taken over the -u- from there; ammuk has it from the nom. /uk/, that in
turn from *tu (variant of *tu: which gave Anat. *ti: > Hitt. zi-k with -k
from 'I').

> It is also rather easy to see that the pronouns have retained an inflection
> of -w (or attachment of -w) of which only dubious traces remain in IE nouns.
> The 2nd person dual and  plural are particularly indicative: these forms
> (*yu: / *yu:s [both built on *yew)

Yes, there is a /w/ in the inflection of the pronouns, thanks for the
support, intended or not.

> I must confess I am completely at a loss to understand a reconstruction of
> the first and second person accusatives (formerly absolutives) of  *nsme and
> *usme when *-sme is clearly nothing more that an asseverative particle
> particularly in view of *ne. How can we blithely accept *nsme in view of
> forms like Homeric no{^}i which is almost certainly simply derived from
> *ne/o + *wi:?

Confession accepted. The Gk. form is dual, its oldest form is believed to
be /no:e/ (Whatelet); that would match Av. /a:va/ as *nH3we. To strain
your blood pressure, I take the Skt. sma(:) 'verily' to be parallel
with *nsme *usme, only made form the reflexive plural, IE *sme from
**sweD-me, through invented stages like *sfeDme > *sfezme > *sfozme >
*sphozme > *sphzme > *sphme > acc. *sme 'the ones mentioned', of which it
may be the instr. *sme-H1 "per se".

> These are not my only objections to the analysis Jens has provided but I
> will address the other issues later if it seems there is interest.

Some of the objections actually express agreement if you look.

> <snip>
...

Jens