Syllabicity

[Patrick C. Ryan]

[ moderator re-formatted ]

Dear Peter and IEists:

 ----- Original Message -----
From: petegray <petegray at btinternet.com>
Sent: Sunday, May 23, 1999 8:44 AM

> Pat suggested:

>> (concerning the IE words for 'father, mother, sister,
>> brother, etc.) ... you may
>> wish to dispute whether -*ter in these cases is *agentive* but that puts
>> you in the rather dubious position of arguing that IE had, at least, **two**
>> suffixes: -*ter, agentive, and -*ter, meaning unknown,

Peter helpfully commented:

> If I dare to join this debate, I offer two points:

> (a) We know IE did indeed have two such suffixes, one the agentive (though
> I think *-tor is better than *-ter) and the "contrastive pair" suffix, which
> we find in a range of words, such as Latin alter, Greek heteros, etc, and
> in the comparative -teros.  It was even suggested in the 70's that it was
> this last suffix, the comparative pair, which is found in the family words.

> (b) We know that the family suffix is not *-ter but *-6ter.   People have
> written articles on it in JIES.

Quite ght. Thanks for the additional comments. I should have said: " . . .
that IE had, at least, **three** suffixes: -*ter, agentive, -*ter, meaning
unknown, and -*ter, contrastive.

As to (b), since I have not seen the article, could you explain a bit
further?

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN (501) 227-9947; FAX/DATA (501)312-9947 9115 W. 34th St.
Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES:
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meipi er mangi veit hvers hann af rstum renn." (Havamal 138)