Gk gen plural
petegray
petegray at btinternet.com
Thu Jan 4 09:42:56 UTC 2001
> Wouldn't they both end up the same? ... I'm not sure in what
> circumstances in Greek you could expect to see a difference between the
> result of -aso:m and -aH2o:m.
This was my point. Several authors confidently assert that the pronominal
ending -asom was adopted into Greek as well as into Latin, but I can see no
evidence for this assertion at all.
The only argument I can see is from probability: Latin and Greek both
borrow the pronominal nominative plural, Latin/Italic borrows the pronominal
genitive plural, so perhaps Greek also did - but the books seem to make
statements more strongly than that. (e.g. Szemerenyi p190 "Latin and Greek
... both from -a:som .. the pronominal ending." Beekes, on the other hand,
avoids this error.)
I'm glad I haven't overlooked some obvious bit of evidence!
Peter
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