IE pers.pron.

[Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen]

On Sun, 18 Apr 1999, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote:

> [On my IE rec. of pers.pron. - mainly after Cowgill in
> >Evid.f.Laryng., viz.:]

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

> Why *H3 in the dual forms?  Couldn't it be *H1(w) with o-Stufe?
> In principle, I'd go along with Beekes in reconstructing *-H1 for
> the dual of nouns (in view of Greek consonant stem -e < *-H1, and
> lengthened vowel elsewhere).

The Gk. /-e/ cannot be a syllabic *-H1 if it is to match OLith. augus-e
'the two grown ones' or OIr. di: pherid 'two heels', only IE *-e will do
here. However, as the vowel must be a secondary prop-vowel since it
has not caused accent/ablaut to move, this is neutral as to whether the
consonant ultimately at work was *-H3 or *-H1. Certainly *-H2 is excluded
since its well-known effect of lengthening is not caused in the nom.-acc.
dual. If there is a long vowel in the 1st dual ending of thematic verbs,
Skt. -a:vas, Goth. -o:s, then it cannot be *-oH1-wos if the choice of -e-
and -o- as the form of the "thematic vowel" depends on the voicing of the
following segment, and of course the Goth. form cannot come from *-eH1wos,
so only *-oH3wos would then do. But can we really exclude *-o-wos with no
laryngeal? That depends on the rules of Germanic. If Gk. no:^e is
identical with Avest. /a:va/ (Skt. a:va:m with added -am), then the etymon
can only be *nH3we - but the Gk. omega could have been taken from the
enclitic which would be *noH with any laryngeal. Even so there is nothing
that directly points to -H1- as the dual marker - unless somebody can
dissect the neuter dual in *-yH1 so as to make /H1/ a common dual marker;
what would be the morphological principle of that?
[...]
You say you miss a reference to the (morpho)phoneme /c/ in my assumption
of a development of *tw- via *Dw- to *y-/*w- in 'you'. It IS that element
I have in mind, only the two problems do not overlap so that I can decide
if the stage /c/ has bee reached by the time relevant here.
[...]

Jens