IE pers.pron. (dual forms)

[Patrick C. Ryan]

[ moderator re-formatted ]

Dear Jens and IEists:

 ----- Original Message -----
From: Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen <jer at cphling.dk>
Sent: Wednesday, May 19, 1999 6:45 PM

<snip>

> That's the point! Then also Slav. -i and -y are analogical forms
> just like the Skt. ones. In all probability the analogy was already
> completed in the protolanguage: Just as o-stems form non-ntr. dual in
> *-o:, thus i- and u-stems form *-i: and *-u:.

That is certainly a possibility.

>>> I'm not saying the non-neuter was _originally_ *-e, I'm saying it was
>>> (or things look as if it was) in the IE protolanguage. I am not sure
>>> there were no vowel-initial roots, it is mostly very hard to prove that
>>> something as hazy as *H1 was not present. On the other hand, there is
>>> absolute certainty that IE did have vowel-initial affixes. You may take
>>> the gen.sg. ending; whether you want to posit *-os or *-es, there
>>> is no place for "-Hos" or "-Hes";

> So, for the dual *-e, it _would_ be a problem for you if it did not have
> a laryngeal, as sva'sa:rau indicates it did not.

Pat responds:

Beekes looks at the same data, and on pg. 194, reconstructs -*He. Why is he
wrong?

Pat responded earlier:

>> As for the genitive, I reconstruct *-s(V), with the final vowel falling off
>> due to stress-accent of a preceding syllable: "Ce/oC + sV -> Ce/o-"Ce/os.

Jens asks:

> With accent shifting onto a vowel that was not there?

Pat responds:

Sorry, I should have written "Ce/oC(V) -> Ce/o-"Ce/os.

Jens, previously:

>>>  I have managed to explain the nom.pl. *-es from an earlier
>>> vowel-less sequence *-z-c (two different sibilants, one marking the
>>> nom., the other the pl., in that order, structurally parallel with the
>>> acc.pl. in orig. *-m- + sibilant),

Pat asked:

>> Why not simply *-s(V)s(V)?

Jens responded:

> In the reading *-ss, no objection, except that we do need two different
> sibilants for other reasons.

Jens, previously:

>>> the calculation giving at the same time phonetic explanation of all the
>>> many other oddities of the nom. pl. forms, esp. the type in *-'-or-es,
>>> *-'-on-es:  Why is the -o- not lost? Why is it o, not e? Why is it not
>>> long? Why has the e not been lost? And, of course, why is the e not
>>> accented?

Pat responded:

>> There is no doubt that these are all good questions.

Jens explains:

>>> All of this is explained by **-z-c where there was no vowel to shift
>>> to: An unaccented -e- is first reduced to -o-; then the nom. sibilant
>>> ("-z-") lengthens (result now *-'-o:r-zc); then short unstressed
>>> vowels are lost (but this form does not have any, so the rule operates
>>> vacuously here); a long vowel is shorted before word-final
>>> triconsonantal clusters [containing the nom. sibilant].

Pat responded:

>> For some languages, perhaps. But for IE, a tri-consonantal cluster of this
>> form is not likely to have been a realized phenomenon at *any* stage of IE.

Jens now writes:

> So, the effects I say they have caused on the surface forms come from
> elsewhere? From where? And why are precisely three consonants of a
> structure pointed to by the morphology excluded by your ruling? Is it the
> number three in itself that is excessive? Or is it the sibilant character
> of two of the elements? Or is it my assumption that they were not
> identical? Would it help if I said that, for the present purpose, they may
> as well be identical since their difference is irrelevant here?

Pat answers:

I am not disputing that the process you describe is possible --- only that
it is probable. But, that must be tempered by the circumstance that I do not
have a "better" explanation to offer.

Pat wrote previously.

>> I think one important factor that should be considered in these equations is
>> the example Beekes gives on p. 195 of Greek <o{'}sse>, 'pair of eyes', which
>> he derives from *ok{w}-iH{1} THROUGH *ok{w}-ye. We could, just as easily,
>> posit a dual in -y and forget about the laryngeal.

Jens writes:

> In this particular case we could - for Greek. But not for Slavic oc^i
> (would have reduced i), nor for Arm. ac^'k' (would not be a-stem, gen.
> ac^'ac'). And especially it would not give Skt. -i: with length in the
> ntr.du. of cons.-stems.

Pat responds:

I do not have the reference books here to substantiate this comment but, if
I understand Beekes correctly, OCS would not have oc{^}i but rather
oc{^}e{^}. Is that incorrect?

I will not comment on the Armenian since I am in the same situation. But
perhaps a list-member who is more familiar with Armenian and its convoluted
phonology would be willing to comment?

As far as the length of Sanskrit -i:,  it seems to me that a couple of
explanations could account for the length: 1) analogy; 2) vrddhi, etc.

 <snip>

Jens mentioned:

>>> *H2ner-y cannot give Gk. ane'r-e;

Pat responded:

>> In view of Gk. o{'}sse, why not?

Jens responds:

> There is no such rule. The /y/ would syllabify and yield **ane'r-i. That's
> what happened in the loc.sg. *p at 2-te'r-i > Gk. dat. pate'ri, Skt. loc.
> pita'ri.

Pat responds:

Not sure what you mean by "no rule". It is a process described on p. 195 of
Beekes. Also, the dative has a different base form: -*(H)ey, which is
nothing more than the well-known *Hey-, 'to go'.

Jens mentioned:

>>> u-stem *-u-y cannot give Skt. -u:.

Pat asked:

>> Why cannot su:nu{'}- + -y yield su:nu:{'} with compensatory lengthening?

Jens responded:

> There is no such rule. In one instance, a stem amu- got segmented off by a
> funny analogy in the inflection of the pronoun asau 'that one' (acc.sg.M
> amu-m) and was used in the formation of a pl. with /-y/, this giving
> ami:, not **amu:.

Pat responds:

I think it is dangerous to assume that combinatory rules have acted
identically at different periods, do you not?

Jens asked:

>>> What _is_ the basis of your decision in favour of *-y ??

Pat answered:

>> The majority of the attested forms, there being no /i/ in IE..

Jens responded:

> For most positions, you are right: The original difference between the
> morphophonemes /i/ and /y/ are neutralized almost across the board and can
> therefore be represented by one phoneme. However, that is not the point
> we're discussing; we're arguing about the presence or absence of a
> laryngeal in the ntr.du., remember? And in this point Skt. yuge' 'two
> yokes' passes judgment, for this form is sandhi resistent ("pragrhya")
> and so _must_ have ended in a laryngeal.

Pat responds:

Sorry, I cannot accept the idea that laryngeals still functioning in
Sanskrit made yuge{'} sandhi-resistant.

Jens wrote:

>>> It may be illogical to abbreviate wordforms when forming enclitic variants
>>> of them, but many languages plainly do that.

Pat responded:

>> Not in my opinion. I believe that emphatic variants are marked by
>> expansions of the underlying forms found in enclitics.

Jens responded:

> That is often the case, perhaps mostly, but not always: Is howdydo an
> expansion of howdy? And how-do-you-do an even further expansion?

Pat wonders:

Jens, is <howdy> an *enclitic* to you?

Jens continued:

>>> It's like numerals and greetings, you get all sorts of reduced
>>> shapes in allegro speech, since people already understand the
>>> message at the beginning (sometimes even before).

Pat responded:

>> Some holes do not improve with additional digging.
>>  I believe it is beyond unreasonable to suggest that jam is
>> a reduction of jamui! Simple always comes before complex.

Jens protested:

> So this is wrong too? Well, let me tell you that the Danish decadic
> numerals 40-90 were formerly two or three syllables longer than now. A
> hundred years ago, you could only write

> fyrretyve, halvtredsindstyve, tresindstyve, halvfjerdsindstyve,
> firsindstyve, halvfemsindstyve,

> but in my lifetime they have always been as short as

> fyrre, halvtreds, tres, halvfjerds, firs, halvfems;

> and informed scholars know of _no_ phonetic rule to delete word-final
> -tyve or -indstyve in this language. These are true abbreviations.

Pat responds:

Phonological reductions and abbreviations are two different animals;
enclitics and numerals are two more.

Jens writes:

> It seems to me that there just are some solutions you do not _like_ on
> apriori grounds. Too bad, then, if the material at hand points in that
> direction, I am still gonna accept them, even if I do not like them
> myself. I am no authority on taste in scholarly solutions, nor do I see on
> what grounds anybody else could be. Conversely, there also appear to be
> some solutions you would _like_ to be true, even if the material at hands
> points unambiguously away from them. I'll be doubting them very much
> until, by some unlikely turn of events, the hard evidence turns out to be
> illusory and is overruled by a new and better possibility. In the case of
> *-e or *-H1e for the non-ntr. dual, not much is needed (but none is
> present yet). For *-y or *-iH1, it takes miracles to vindicate the former
> over the latter. And that wordforms can be shortened is simply beyond
> dispute.

Pat answers:

I would be lying if I could not admit to some a priori principles. Are any
of us free of them? And although I do believe that "de gustibus non est
disputandum", I hope we are dealing with matters a little less subject to
whim than taste.

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN (501) 227-9947; FAX/DATA (501)312-9947 9115 W. 34th St.
Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803 and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit
ek, at ek hekk, vindga meipi, nftr allar nmu, geiri undapr . . . a ~eim
meipi er mangi veit hvers hann af rstum renn." (Havamal 138)