On 27 Jul 2005 at 15:36, elmeras2000 wrote:


[On the valencies of the Moscow School]


> I find it amazing how frequently the valencies are predictable. All acute
vowels are heavy, [...].


That looks to me like a misunderstanding. Acute vs. non-acute and "H" vs. "L"
are independent,
as shown by the Lithuanian paradigm (3), where the stem is acute but low. There
are four
possibilities: (1) Acute+H; (2) Non-acute+H; (3) Acute+L; (4) Non-acute+L.


> I intuitively consider it close to cheating to just write a feature of valency
into the segments, but I admit that
> by Balto-Slavic this system has been brought about, and it does seem to be
adequate for the explanation of younger
> and productive forms.


I'm not sure it is cheating in a strict sense, but compared with more
traditional approaches it
doubles the number of prosodic possibilities in unstressed position, thereby
critically enhancing
the opportunities for fishing in muddy waters.


The Leiden people appear to regard the valency system as pre-PIE (where it has
to contribute to
the rise of the distinction between voiceless and aspirated consonants, laut
Lubotsky), perhaps
wholly or in part as PIE (considering the way elements of it are held to have
survived into Greek
and Indo-Iranian, laut Kortlandt) and presumably assume that it collapsed (i.e.
developed into a
system of contrastive stress) at an early Balto-Slavic stage (but I'm not sure
they say so anywhere
explicitly).


I'd written:

> > (i) In Moscow, Sergej Nikolaev has personally seen to it that Dybo's law has
disintegrated into a "rightward
> drift" comprising an entire series of changes which I for one don't understand
at all, but which is held to have
> enormous consequences for PSl dialectology.


You wrote:


> Is that wise?


Obviously not, but Nikolaev's messy "rightward drift" (which is a succession of
rightward shifts)
still appears to be the party line.


And:


> It seems that dialectology always wreaks havoc when specialists want all
variants to be accounted for
> as if they were all equally old. [...]


I couldn't agree more.


I'd written:


> > And in that connection, de Saussure's law has been reformulated for the
first time in almost a century.


And you reacted:


> Really? Saussure' law is as neat as anything we've got: A long vowel takes the
accent from a preceding short vowel -
> the strong one wins. If the long vowel is given heavy valency in a younger
system, the law can logically be
> abolished; is that what has been done?



This one really has to be seen to be believed. (Note again that valencies are
independent of
length.) The stress is held to have moved to an internal syllable only if the
latter is _of the same
valency_ as the originally stressed syllable. (For final syllables de Saussure's
formulation still
holds, of course until further notice.) But don't take my word for it, ça vaut
le détour: Dybo, V.A.
& Nikolaev, S.L., "Novye dannye i materialy po balto-slavjanskoj akcentologii".
In: Problemy
slavjanskogo jazykoznanija: Tri doklada k XII Mez^dunarodnomu s"ezdu slavistov,
M., 1998, 5-
70, p. 54. Same text (nearly): Dybo, V.A., "Iz balto-slavjanskoj akcentologii.
Problema zakona
Fortunatova i popravka k zakonu F. de Sossjura", Balto-slavjanskie Issledovanija
1998-1999,
2000, 27-82, p. 75.


I'd written:


> > (iii) Kortlandt's law is by no means unopposed among the four (five?)
specialists in Old Prussian. To put it
mildly.


And you reacted:


> How so? Kortlandt's observation that geminated spelling is regularly
> followed by accent mark on vowels is a rare case of empirical proof.
> I am desperately behind in my reading. Could you tell us some more?


It's a general impression ...


(A point observers tend not to like is the idea that geminated spelling points
to stress on the
_following_ rather than the _preceding_ syllable, never mind the empirical
proof.)


[...]



> ... The smaller and more specialized the field, the less room does it offer
for acceptance of the opinions of others.
> That is just petty rivalry.



Well, yes, but earlier accentologists (up to the generation of Belic/,
Lehr-Spl/awin/ski, van Wijk,
etc.) would assiduously review and discuss and dissect each other's work,
simplifying the role of
the onlookers mightily.


[...]


I'd written:


> > Literally nobody outside Leiden accepts Kortlandt's glottalic interpretation
of it, yet I'm not familiar with even
> a single systematic discussion. Given the virtual consensus one would have
expected several.


And you wrote:


> But what would there be to discuss systematically?


The way it is embedded in a general conception of the development of the
phonological history
of Balto-Slavic.


> If (apart from aRD > a:RD) Winter's law works immediately before the accent,
then the Latvian tone would be the
> glottal one anyway. Shintani said that.


OK, but there are counterexamples, such as the 'nit' word.


On the documentation of accent types:

> > Another point is the rickety foundation of the attribution of accent types
to individual items, particularly in the
> case of nouns. The word for 'hand' (Lith. _ranka_) has the reflex of fixed
stem stress in Lithuanian (2) and is
> overwhelmingly mobile in Slavic. The case is typical (most items are attested
with more than a single accent type)
> and the tradition is just to state apodictically whichever solution seems most
convenient, often on the basis of data
> from unpublished and unanalysed manuscripts or dialects. (The massive use of
factual material that cannot be publicly
> evaluated was initiated by Illich-Svitych, sorry to say.)


And you wrote:

> Sure, if ''hand' is 2 and c, don't use it; same with material that cannot be
trusted.


Consistency in this respect would force one to throw away just about all the
evidence.


> ... I for one find Il.-Sv.'s presentation ond the conclusions drawn from it
absolutely compelling. I consider his
> oeuvre and his genius to be on the same level as Saussure's.


Ill.-Sv. had very little time: at the age Mozart died, he [Ill.-Sv.] had been
dead for five years. And
he belonged to the generation that had to reinvent historical linguistics after
it had been reduced
to the merest trickle as a consequence of the Russian revolution and its
aftermath. He is a hero.
But nobody is perfect. De Saussure would never have dreamed of quoting factual
material from
sources without first reading the introduction _and_ being on the look-out for
signs that
everything is not well _and_ acquainting himself with the general context.
Whereas Ill.-Sv.'s
recklessness in this respect really has to be seen to be believed. His
observation that the
Common Slavic transition of msc o-stems from (b) to (c) failed to take place in
the peripheral
north-west of C^akavian (the phenomenon later called "(d)") is exclusively built
on palpably
unreliable dialect descriptions coupled with ignorance of the basics of SCr
dialectology. And this
happens to be a point we _can_ check because those descriptions have at least
been published
and subjected to a certain amount of public evaluation. So I tend to be a bit
sceptical about those
cases where we can't judge for ourselves because we have no access to the
primary facts. I'm
convinced that in Vedic or Greek or Old Germanic studies nobody would get away
with this kind
of thing. Why should Balto-Slavic accentology be different?


[...]



Willem

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--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Willem Vermeer" <wrvermeer@h...>
wrote:
> On 27 Jul 2005 at 15:36, elmeras2000 wrote:
>
>
> [On the valencies of the Moscow School]
>
>
> > I find it amazing how frequently the valencies are predictable.
All acute vowels are heavy, [...].
>
>
> That looks to me like a misunderstanding. Acute vs. non-acute
and "H" vs. "L" are independent,
> as shown by the Lithuanian paradigm (3), where the stem is acute
but low. There are four
> possibilities: (1) Acute+H; (2) Non-acute+H; (3) Acute+L; (4) Non-
acute+L.

Yes, of course, I know. That was nonsense. It rather looks like the
old accents: An accented syllable is high, others low. So low acutes
will typically be pretonic long vowels in vrddhi formations.

Thank you for your very rich post. I'll come back to some of the
other points it contains at a later time.

Jens

In languages as greek and old Indic you have three aspects:

Perfective (usually called aoriste), imperfective and perfectum

You further have the tenses: present, preterite and future, but not
all tenses in all aspects. (present only have imperfect).

-----------------------------------------------

In Anatolian you have only the tenses present and preterite. There
are no aspect in the flectional paradigm, but there are certain
derivational endings with aspectual meaning.

--------------------------------------------------------

Traditionally the aspect/tense system of Greek and Sanskrit have
been regarded as the original one, apart from the future tense.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

My queation is this: What tense/aspect system is by now regarded as
the original in the Proto-IE/Indo-Hettite? Has the traditional view
been modified on the background of the findings in Anatolian?

Or are there not any agreement at all about this any more?

> In languages as greek and old Indic you have three aspects:
> Perfective (usually called aoriste), imperfective and perfectum

That's argued!    Greek certainly shows this aspect system, but in Sanskrit
the "perfect" functions rather differently from the "perfect" in Greek.
Often in Skt the perfect is scarcely distinguishable from aorist or
imperfect.

It looks as if the daughter languages have taken PIE elements and developed
them in slightly different ways.  We certainly can't take the Greek
aspectual system back to PIE, although the elements of it were probably
there.

> You further have the tenses: present, preterite and future,

The future is an innovation in all daughter languages (though again using
elements already existing in PIE).

>but not all tenses [appear] in all aspects. (present only have imperfect).

You are thinking of Greek again.   The "perfect" aspect (as in perfect
tense) appears in Greek as a present tense - the past and the future are
later innovations.   The "punctative" aspect (as in Greek aorist) appears
best in the non-finite forms, but even here the participle can have a purely
past-tense meaning, rather than aspectual.  OUr desire to regularise it all
just won't work.

> Traditionally the aspect/tense system of Greek and Sanskrit have
> been regarded as the original one, apart from the future tense.

No.    Long ago, there was a tendency to think Greek and Sanskrit preserved
PIE best, but that idea is long dead.  We now know that both languages are
highly innovative, and that the apparent similarity between the two is often
due to the misleading use of Greek labels for Sanskrit morphology.    There
are important ways in which they do preserve elements of PIE, and together
they allow use to build up a good picture of PIE, but it must be
supplemented by evidence from other languages as well.

> My queation is this: What tense/aspect system is by now regarded as
> the original in the Proto-IE/Indo-Hettite? Has the traditional view
> been modified on the background of the findings in Anatolian?

It's still under debate.    It looks as if the elements are there (e.g.
present-tense markings, perhaps to indicate duration or iterative
ction);  -s- forms for punctative (aorist), along side root aorists;
reduplication of at least two different types;  statives, which perhaps
become perfects).
      There is debate whether Hittite has lost the tense patterns, or whether
the other languages have innovated them.  There are probably links between
the perfect tense of Greek and the -hi forms of Hittite;  but Hittite has to
be seen as innovative in the way the -hi conjugation has spread.
   Some scholars get quite heated one way or the other about this.

Peter

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Willem Vermeer" <wrvermeer@h...>
wrote:
On Saussure's law:
> This one really has to be seen to be believed. (Note again that
valencies are independent of
> length.) The stress is held to have moved to an internal syllable
only if the latter is _of the same
> valency_ as the originally stressed syllable. (For final syllables
de Saussure's formulation still
> holds, of course until further notice.) But don't take my word for
it, ça vaut le détour: Dybo, V.A.
> & Nikolaev, S.L., "Novye dannye i materialy po balto-slavjanskoj
akcentologii". In: Problemy
> slavjanskogo jazykoznanija: Tri doklada k XII Mez^dunarodnomu
s"ezdu slavistov, M., 1998, 5-
> 70, p. 54. Same text (nearly): Dybo, V.A., "Iz balto-slavjanskoj
akcentologii. Problema zakona
> Fortunatova i popravka k zakonu F. de Sossjura", Balto-slavjanskie
Issledovanija 1998-1999,
> 2000, 27-82, p. 75.

I'll try and dig up the references, thank you. Does this mean that
there are examples of potential acute vowels that fail to attract
the ictus from preceding non-acute in Lithuanian? Could you give an
example? It's not ran~komis, ran~kose again, is it?

>
> I'd written:
>
>
> > > Literally nobody outside Leiden accepts Kortlandt's glottalic
interpretation of it, yet I'm not familiar with even
> > a single systematic discussion. Given the virtual consensus one
would have expected several.
>
>
> And you wrote:
>
>
> > But what would there be to discuss systematically?
>
>
> The way it is embedded in a general conception of the development
of the phonological history
> of Balto-Slavic.
>
>
> > If (apart from aRD > a:RD) Winter's law works immediately before
the accent, then the Latvian tone would be the
> > glottal one anyway. Shintani said that.
>
>
> OK, but there are counterexamples, such as the 'nit' word.

I do not see what is surprising about glìnda (1), Latv. gni~da, Sl.
*gni"da (a). If there was a sequence *-ind- in it at some point,
that should produce *-i:nd- regardless of the position of the accent.


> > ... I for one find Il.-Sv.'s presentation ond the conclusions
drawn from it absolutely compelling. I consider his
> > oeuvre and his genius to be on the same level as Saussure's.
On Illich-Svitych:
> His observation that the
> Common Slavic transition of msc o-stems from (b) to (c) failed to
take place in the peripheral
> north-west of C^akavian (the phenomenon later called "(d)") is
exclusively built on palpably
> unreliable dialect descriptions coupled with ignorance of the
basics of SCr dialectology.

How much of it is wrong? I had got the impression that there were
indeed some errors of detail in the dialect descriptions, but that
the general message remained sound. Could you illustrate how wrong
this impression is?

Jens

Hello All,

I found out that the Irish word >>mór<< is cognate with Romanian word
>>mare<<.


I. >>mór<< Irish word -> adj big; adj great; adj large; adj large-
scale;
url: http://www.englishirishdictionary.com/dictionary?dict=ie&word=mor

II. >>mare<< Romanian word -> adj big; adj great; adj large; so
identical
url: http://dexonline.ro/search.php?cuv=mare&source=
Note: The DEX's Etymology for the Romanian word is Not OK:
Lat. mas doesn't fit phonetically and Latin maris means 'sea' so it
doesn't fit semantically (It's true that the 'Sea' is 'Big' but such a
basic notion as 'BIG' is cannot be constructed starting from the 'SEA'
concept as root concept...

So either the Romanian word >>mare<< 'big' is a Celtic word borrowed
by the Dacians (and next preserved in the Romanian Substratum) or the
Romanian word (having a Substratum (Dacian) origin) is cognate with
the Irish word.

Could somebody can post the full derivation from PIE of the Irish
word...

Thansk and Best Regards,
   Marius

According to Watkins *me:-3 'big' (Contracted from earlier *meH1-). 1.
Suffixed (comparative) form *me:-is-. MORE, from Old English ma:ra,
greater, and <ma:re> (adverb), more, from Germanic *maizo:n. Suffixed
(superlative) form *me:-isto, MOST, from Old English *mae:st, most,
from Germanic *maista-. 3.Suffixed form *me:-ro-, *me:-ri. MARCHEN,
from Old High German ma:ri, news, narration. 4. Suffixed o-grade form
*mo:-ro-. CLAYMORE, from Gaelic <mo:r>, big, great. [Pokorny 4. *me:-
704.]

You must take into consideration rhotasism *s > r.

Konushevci

On 8/3/05, alexandru_mg3 <alexandru_mg3@...> wrote:
> Hello All,
>
> I found out that the Irish word >>mór<< is cognate with Romanian word
> >>mare<<.
>
>
> I. >>mór<< Irish word -> adj big; adj great; adj large; adj large-
> scale;
> url:
> http://www.englishirishdictionary.com/dictionary?dict=ie&word=mor
>
> II. >>mare<< Romanian word -> adj big; adj great; adj large; so
> identical
> url: http://dexonline.ro/search.php?cuv=mare&source=
> Note: The DEX's Etymology for the Romanian word is Not OK:
> Lat. mas doesn't fit phonetically and Latin maris means 'sea' so it
> doesn't fit semantically (It's true that the 'Sea' is 'Big' but such a
> basic notion as 'BIG' is cannot be constructed starting from the 'SEA'
> concept as root concept...
>
> So either the Romanian word >>mare<< 'big' is a Celtic word borrowed
> by the Dacians (and next preserved in the Romanian Substratum) or the
> Romanian word (having a Substratum (Dacian) origin) is cognate with
> the Irish word.
>
> Could somebody can post the full derivation from PIE of the Irish
> word...
>
> Thansk and Best Regards,
>   Marius
>
>
>
>
>
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--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "alexandru_mg3" <alexandru_mg3@y...>
wrote:
>
> II. >>mare<< Romanian word -> adj big; adj great; adj large; so
> identical
> url: http://dexonline.ro/search.php?cuv=mare&source=
> Note: The DEX's Etymology for the Romanian word is Not OK:
> Lat. mas doesn't fit phonetically and Latin maris means 'sea' so it
> doesn't fit semantically (It's true that the 'Sea' is 'Big' but
such a
> basic notion as 'BIG' is cannot be constructed starting from the
'SEA'
> concept as root concept...
>
********
    Your DEX reference derives Rom. 'mare' probably from the Latin
'mas, maris' "male".  Buck explains further "in designating the male
animal of a species and consequently the larger", with refs. to
Puscariu and Tiktin.  Certainly the Rom. would derive from a oblique
case of rhe Latin word, probably the Acc. 'marem' with the final m
elided. I'd say that's a pretty good fit phonetically and quite
reasonable semantics.  What are your objections?
Dan Milton

On 2 Aug 2005 at 13:37, elmeras2000 wrote:

[On the Moscow revision of de Saussure's law:]


> It's not ran~komis, ran~kose again, is it?


Bingo! Plus ça change ....



[On Winter's law:]


> I do not see what is surprising about glìnda (1), Latv. gni~da, Sl.
> *gni"da (a). If there was a sequence *-ind- in it at some point,
> that should produce *-i:nd- regardless of the position of the accent.


But that way you don't get the Slavic form.


[On Illich-Svitych's use of dialect descriptions to prove the non-occurrence of
the transition of (b)
to (c) in masculine o-stems.]



> How much of it is wrong? I had got the impression that there were
> indeed some errors of detail in the dialect descriptions, but that
> the general message remained sound. Could you illustrate how wrong
> this impression is?


It is emphatically not a matter of errors of detail. Unfortunately this can't be
done briefly.


The central point is the following. SCr dialects are very complex. As a
consequence, quite a few
dialect descriptions are not reliable enough for Slavic accentology to operate
with. This is an
elementary truth known to everybody who deals with that kind of material. (And
the same holds
for Slovene and Lithuanian.)



A. "Istria".


The allegedly Istrian material (from Nemanic/ 1883-1885) is from a description
that mixes
information from many different but unspecified places (also outside Istria) and
normalizes the
results. That is enough to make it quite worthless as a source.
(Dialectologically speaking the
area covered by Nemanic/ is known to be extremely heterogeneous.) When Ill.-Sv.
dredged up
Nemanic/'s work, it had not been used by serious accentologists for more than
half a century.


B. Susak.


The Susak material is from a description written by three authors: Josip Hamm,
Mate Hraste and
Petar Guberina (Hrvatski dialektolos^ki zbornik 1, 1956). Most of it is by Hamm
(including the
lengthy glossary), the chapter on inflection is by Hraste; the very brief
section on phonetics is by
Guberina. Much about this dialect grammar is worrisome.


The authors have not managed to determine whether or not the dialect has a tonal
contrast and in
which positions it has contrastive vowel quantity. To make up for that
deficiency they present
their material in a phonetic transcription in which tone and length are noted
impressionistically
(rather than contrastively, as is traditional). The result is an immense amount
of doublets and a
complete absence of clarity about the prosodic system, i.e. about the very
subject accentology
happens to be about. This point alone is a good reason to be extremely cautious.



There are systematic discrepancies between Hraste's and Hamm's contributions.
Since they
cannot both be correct, at least one of them has to be unreliable in important
respects. The
material Illich-Svitych operates with is limited to Hraste's chapter, completely
lacking parallels in
the sections written by Hamm.


Both authors have a problematic track record as dialectologists. Hamm, who was a
specialist on
medieval texts, had a quite limited dialectological experience. Hraste is well
known for his work
on the dialects of his native central Dalmatia (Hvar and Brac^), but his work on
dialects further
away from his native area has a very poor reputation. In 1951 Stjepan Ivs^ic/
took the
unprecendented step of warning the scholarly public about the unreliability of
Hraste's later work.
Considering the track record of the two principal authors there is reason for
caution, particularly
in the case of Hraste.



What I find most disturbing is that Ill-Sv. appears to have missed the warning
signs that are so
abundant both in Nemanic/ and in the Susak description. In both cases you really
don't need a
background in SCr dialectology to realize that something is terribly wrong.



[For further discussion see my article in Folia Linguistica Historica 5/2, 1984
(pp. 358-361) and
my appendix to the second edition of Werner Lehfeldt's book (2001, pp.
134-138).]



All the best,




Willem

Daniel J. Milton wrote:
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "alexandru_mg3" <alexandru_mg3@y...>
> wrote:
>>
>> II. >>mare<< Romanian word -> adj big; adj great; adj large; so
>> identical
>> url: http://dexonline.ro/search.php?cuv=mare&source=
>> Note: The DEX's Etymology for the Romanian word is Not OK:
>> Lat. mas doesn't fit phonetically and Latin maris means 'sea' so it
>> doesn't fit semantically (It's true that the 'Sea' is 'Big' but such
>> a basic notion as 'BIG' is cannot be constructed starting from the
>> 'SEA' concept as root concept...
>>
> ********
>   Your DEX reference derives Rom. 'mare' probably from the Latin
> 'mas, maris' "male".  Buck explains further "in designating the male
> animal of a species and consequently the larger", with refs. to
> Puscariu and Tiktin.  Certainly the Rom. would derive from a oblique
> case of rhe Latin word, probably the Acc. 'marem' with the final m
> elided. I'd say that's a pretty good fit phonetically and quite
> reasonable semantics.  What are your objections?
> Dan Milton

the semantism. I disregard Alb-Rom words which looks similar if the
semantism is not the same or almost the same. I am tired of Puscariu,
Tiktin and Co which applies semantic development in such manner.Puscariu
belongs to that generation of romantics which tried to made everything
Latin.Even Rosetti disregard his explanations regarding the semantism
seeing them as "not necesary".   BTW Dan, take please Latin "fortuna"
and Rom "furtunã", Latin "castigare", Rom. "câshtiga", Latin "superare"
and Rom. "supãrare" and so on (there are plenty of such examples). They
look perfect phoneticaly, don't they? Well, this is all. They looks like
that and this is all.

Alex




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Maro(s)

Grand/Immense

Etymologie

Indo-Européen Mar/Moro

Irlandais Mar/Mór . Gallois Mawr. Breton Meur. Manx Mooar

Daniel J. Milton wrote:
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "alexandru_mg3"
> wrote:
>>
>> II. >>mare<< Romanian word -> adj big; adj great; adj large; so
>> identical
>> url: http://dexonline.ro/search.php?cuv=mare&source=

I know this isn't what Cybalist is for, but I'm wondering if someone could help
me with a Latin translation.

Someone who thinks I'm a Latin expert wants me to translate "I miss you", as
said by a daughter to her dead father, into Latin. I have not been able to do
it. All the dictionaries in the library where I live are from Latin to other
languages, not the other way around.

Best regards,
Hakan Lindgren

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Håkan Lindgren <h5@b...> wrote:
> I know this isn't what Cybalist is for, but I'm wondering if someone
could help me with a Latin translation.
>
> Someone who thinks I'm a Latin expert wants me to translate "I miss
you", as said by a daughter to her dead father, into Latin. I have not
been able to do it. All the dictionaries in the library where I live
are from Latin to other languages, not the other way around.
>
> Best regards,
> Hakan Lindgren
*******
    Nobody thinks I'm a Latin expert, but I'll give it a try.
"Tui egeo".
This is based on Plautus  Asinaria 3.3.1:
A: Cur me retentas?
P: Quia tui amans abeuntis egeo.
translated as
A: Why are you holding me back?
P: Because, as I love you, I cannot bear your departing.

Dan Milton

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Willem Vermeer" <wrvermeer@h...>
wrote:
> On 2 Aug 2005 at 13:37, elmeras2000 wrote:
>
> [On the Moscow revision of de Saussure's law:]
>
>
> > It's not ran~komis, ran~kose again, is it?
>
>
> Bingo! Plus ça change ....
>
>
>
> [On Winter's law:]
>
>
> > I do not see what is surprising about glìnda (1), Latv. gni~da,
Sl.
> > *gni"da (a). If there was a sequence *-ind- in it at some point,
> > that should produce *-i:nd- regardless of the position of the
accent.
>
>
> But that way you don't get the Slavic form.


Come on, this is one of those assi-dissi-words: The second -n- in -
nind- is by assimilation to the first, the Lith. -l- is by
dissimilation, and the Slavic replacement by length can also be
dissimilation.


> [On Illich-Svitych's use of dialect descriptions to prove the non-
occurrence of the transition of (b)
> to (c) in masculine o-stems.]
>
>
>
> > How much of it is wrong? I had got the impression that there
were
> > indeed some errors of detail in the dialect descriptions, but
that
> > the general message remained sound. Could you illustrate how
wrong
> > this impression is?
>
>
> It is emphatically not a matter of errors of detail. Unfortunately
this can't be done briefly.
>
>
> The central point is the following. SCr dialects are very complex.
As a consequence, quite a few
> dialect descriptions are not reliable enough for Slavic
accentology to operate with. This is an
> elementary truth known to everybody who deals with that kind of
material. (And the same holds
> for Slovene and Lithuanian.)
>
>
>
> A. "Istria".
>
>
> The allegedly Istrian material (from Nemanic/ 1883-1885) is from a
description that mixes
> information from many different but unspecified places (also
outside Istria) and normalizes the
> results. That is enough to make it quite worthless as a source.
(Dialectologically speaking the
> area covered by Nemanic/ is known to be extremely heterogeneous.)
When Ill.-Sv. dredged up
> Nemanic/'s work, it had not been used by serious accentologists
for more than half a century.
>
>
> B. Susak.
>
>
> The Susak material is from a description written by three authors:
Josip Hamm, Mate Hraste and
> Petar Guberina (Hrvatski dialektolos^ki zbornik 1, 1956). Most of
it is by Hamm (including the
> lengthy glossary), the chapter on inflection is by Hraste; the
very brief section on phonetics is by
> Guberina. Much about this dialect grammar is worrisome.
>
>
> The authors have not managed to determine whether or not the
dialect has a tonal contrast and in
> which positions it has contrastive vowel quantity. To make up for
that deficiency they present
> their material in a phonetic transcription in which tone and
length are noted impressionistically
> (rather than contrastively, as is traditional). The result is an
immense amount of doublets and a
> complete absence of clarity about the prosodic system, i.e. about
the very subject accentology
> happens to be about. This point alone is a good reason to be
extremely cautious.
>
>
>
> There are systematic discrepancies between Hraste's and Hamm's
contributions. Since they
> cannot both be correct, at least one of them has to be unreliable
in important respects. The
> material Illich-Svitych operates with is limited to Hraste's
chapter, completely lacking parallels in
> the sections written by Hamm.

Oops! The last point *really* sounds dramatic.

>
> Both authors have a problematic track record as dialectologists.
Hamm, who was a specialist on
> medieval texts, had a quite limited dialectological experience.
Hraste is well known for his work
> on the dialects of his native central Dalmatia (Hvar and Brac^),
but his work on dialects further
> away from his native area has a very poor reputation. In 1951
Stjepan Ivs^ic/ took the
> unprecendented step of warning the scholarly public about the
unreliability of Hraste's later work.
> Considering the track record of the two principal authors there is
reason for caution, particularly
> in the case of Hraste.
>
>
>
> What I find most disturbing is that Ill-Sv. appears to have missed
the warning signs that are so
> abundant both in Nemanic/ and in the Susak description. In both
cases you really don't need a
> background in SCr dialectology to realize that something is
terribly wrong.
>
>
>
> [For further discussion see my article in Folia Linguistica
Historica 5/2, 1984 (pp. 358-361) and
> my appendix to the second edition of Werner Lehfeldt's book (2001,
pp. 134-138).]

I feel a growing need to get my hands on that and to catch up on my
reading on the matter in general. Thank you for the valuable input.

Jens

Dear List Members,

This message was originally posted on Nostratic-L in response to
Jens' ideas on the IE "thematic vowel".  Afterwards he posted a
message to the effect that he would only review "reactions" to his
post on Cybalist.  Thus I foward my "reactions".

- Rob

--- In Nostratic-L@yahoogroups.com, "elmeras2000" <jer@c...> wrote:
> --- In Nostratic-L@yahoogroups.com, "Rob" <magwich78@y...> wrote:
>
>
> > We are pretty sure of the outcome (i.e. the attested alternations
> > of the "thematic vowel").  What I don't think we're sure about is
> > the process(es) that produced them.
>
> But if you really are informed of the facts, how can you not see
> the difference between vowels in stem-final position and all other
> vowels of the language? The 21-year-old Saussure saw it.

I am 22. :)

Of course I can see that, on the surface, stem-final vowels seem to
be different from the other vowels of the language.  What I'm
wondering is whether appearances are deceiving here.  My inclination
thus far is that they are.

You correctly point out that the alternations in stem-final vowels
appear to operate independently of accent.  Alongside this there is
the alternation of stressed and full-grade vs. unstressed and zero-
grade or o-grade.  These processes do not seem to affect
the "thematic vowels".  To me, that means the "thematic vowels" were
recent within IE and/or were stressed to begin with.  Coupled with
these things are the indications that, by the time of latest IE, the
earlier accent patterns were no longer being followed.  One can see
that most of the transparent (i.e. recent) compounds in IE had
recessive accent.  Furthermore, zero-grade syllables could obviously
carry accent in latest IE: witness *wl'kWos 'wolf' and
*septm' 'seven'.  All this seems to me like evidence of the accent
weakening from one of stress to one of pitch.

Looking at the o-stem masculine nouns, we have the following:

Nom. sg. *-os pl. *-o:s
Acc. sg. *-om pl. *-ons
Gen. sg. *-osyo pl. *-o:m
Dat. sg. *-o:i pl. *-o:is
Abl. sg. *-o:d pl. *-o:is
Ins. sg. *-o: pl. *-o:is
Loc. sg. *-oi pl. *-oisu

In my opinion, this can be traced back to an earlier scheme:

Nom. sg. *-o-s pl. *-o-es
Acc. sg. *-o-m pl. *-o-ns
Gen. sg. *-o-s-yo pl. *-o-om
Dat. sg. *-o-ei pl. *-o-eis
Abl. sg. *-o-ed pl. *-o-eis
Ins. sg. *-o-e? pl. *-o-eis
Loc. sg. *-o-i pl. *-o-isu

That is, there was a non-alternating stem vowel in *-o to which the
case endings were agglutinated.  My source here is Sihler's New
Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin (1995).

Looking at the o-stem neuter nouns, we have the following:

Nom./Acc. sg. *-om pl. *-a: < *-ex

The other cases are the same as for the masculines.  Where you see a
common thematic vowel in both the singular and plural here, I see
suppletion.  In other words, I do not consider the vowel in *-ex to
have the same origin as that in *-om.

Looking at the a:-stem neuter nouns, we have the following:

Nom. sg. *-a: pl. *-a:s
Acc. sg. *-a:m pl. *-a:ns
Gen. sg. *-a:s pl. *-a:om
Dat. sg. *-a:i pl. *-a:is
Abl. sg. *-a:d pl. *-a:is
Ins. sg. *-a: pl. *-a:is
Loc. sg. *-a:i pl. *-a:isu

Again, this looks like it can be traced to an earlier scheme, with *-
a: < *-ex:

Nom. sg. *-ex pl. *-ex-es
Acc. sg. *-ex-m pl. *-ex-ns
Gen. sg. *-ex-s pl. *-ex-om
Dat. sg. *-ex-ei pl. *-ex-eis
Abl. sg. *-ex-ed pl. *-ex-eis
Ins. sg. *-ex-e? pl. *-ex-eis
Loc. sg. *-ex-i pl. *-ex-isu

The obvious conclusion here is that there was a stem-formant *-ex to
which the case endings were agglutinated.  It also seems that this
formant is identical to the neuter plural ending *-ex.

Finally, I think the common element in all of these endings is that
the stem-formant was originally *stressed*.  That's probably what
your "special articulatory prominence" is.  Non-alternating stress
means non-alternating stressed vowel.  Thus these stem-formants were
spared the metaphorical ravages of zero-grading (if that process was
still productive when the stem-formants came to be used).

A question remains of why the vocalism in the o-stems is
regularly /o/ *and* stressed, when the usual pattern is stressed
and /e/ vs. unstressed and /ø/ or /o/.  My tentative answer is that
stressed /o/ comes from earlier stressed /a:/.

Looking at verbs, we seem to find a similar situation (imperfect
active indicative is used here):

1sg *-om 1pl *-omes
2sg *-es 2pl *-etes
3sg *-et 3pl *-ont

These endings obviously look like a combination of "theme vowel" and
personal ending.  As you yourself have expertly pointed out, this
theme vowel is identical to the subjunctive suffix.  Furthermore, we
more or less agree that the thematic forms came from earlier
subjunctives.  Okay, so what causes the alternations in the vocalism
of the suffix, then?  It seems to me that, again, the 1sg and 3pl o-
vocalism can be explained by rounding (and consequently backing) in
the presence of a coda nasal (especially a labial one).  In my
opinion, the 1pl can be explained as being due to analogy with the
1sg.  The e-vocalism elsewhere fits in with the usual pattern of
stress and /e/, which means that this stem-formant, too, was stressed
to begin with.

I don't expect you to agree with everything here (if anything at
all!) and I'm not trying to persuade you that I'm necessarily right.
Rather, I'm just sharing my analyses with you so that you have a
clearer picture of where I'm coming from.

> > Furthermore, the fact that the "thematic vowel" alternations are
> > independent of the accent proves nothing to me, because it seems
> > clear from the known evidence that IE's accent system at the time
> > of its break-up was different from that which produced much (if
> > not most) of the phenomena we see in the language, most notably
> > the full-grade/zero-grade alternations and, by extension, the
> > syllabic resonants.
>
> That is nonsense. The effect of the accent on the distribution of
> full grade and zero grade is very transparent and immediately
> obvious. Why would it only be the stem-final vowels that have
> failed to keep that old dependency transparent over time? You are
> staking everything on a coincidence.

From the above, I hope you can see that the stem-final vowels also
seem to fit in with the "old dependency".  However, it seems that
they were added after the accent ceased to be mobile (i.e. additional
syllables no longer attracted the stress).

> > > > Put another way, there does not seem
> > > > to be any conditioning phenomena that can separate
> > > > the "thematic vowel" from the other alternating vowels in
> > > > IE.  So, either your rule is true everywhere for the general
> > > > e/o vowel, or it is not.
>
> The thematic vowel rule is true for the thematic vowel and
> blatantly false if tentatively applied to other vowels.

Nothing new, there.

> I understand you just don't like the language, but sorry this is
> the way it presents itself.

You misunderstand.  It's not a question of liking or disliking the
language.  For me, it's a question of "What are the facts, and why
are they the way they are?"

> > > > One example will suffice to disprove it: *(xW)ré:gs 'king',
> > > > which under your rule would have been *(xW)ró:gs.
>
> No, there is no thematic vowel in that. It refutes *your* stance.

My stance is not one where your rule applies everywhere in IE.  We do
agree that to posit such a rule for the entirety of the language
would not hold, because the facts say otherwise.  My point was, in
the absence of any conditioning factors, a phonetic rule that effects
a given sound must do so wherever that sound exists in a language.
So, as you said before, the question is whether there were any
conditioning factors over the thematic vowel.  Again, my tentative
answer is that there don't seem to have been any that could satisfy
your proposed rule.

> > Again, "except for the thematic vowel" implies that there was
> > some kind of conditioning factor over the thematic vowel.
> > However, there does not seem to be one.
>
> There must have been, and you could be more helpful if you joined
> the search for its nature instead of just shouting noise to deny
> the facts.

All I will say to this is that there is no reason to get personal
here.

> > I am fully aware that there is no ban on /e/ + voiced segment in
> > IE. My point was, given that and the apparent lack of any
> > conditioning factor over the thematic vowel, your hypothesis does
> > not seem to be correct.
>
> But if the /e/ *is* the thematic vowel, there *is* a ban on /e/ +
> voiced segment. May that fact not be even addressed?

I would not really consider it a fact, as my analyses seem to
indicate that there was not just one "thematic vowel".  In other
words, we are both taking the facts and making inferences from them.
Our inferences here happen to be different.  The question is whose
are more correct, not who is looking at the facts and who is dreaming
things.

> > Finally, I do not think that I attributed any "nonsense" to you.
> > If I am mistaken, please point it out.
>
> By saying "which under your rule would have been *(xW)ró:gs" you
> most certainly did.

If you'll note above, I never claimed that you claimed that your
proposed rule extends beyond the "thematic vowel".  I was saying that
*if* your rule was extended as such, we would expect to see *(xW)
ró:gs instead of *(xW)ré:gs.  Since that is not what we see, your
rule could not be extended that way.  That was my point.

> > With all due respect, what do you think we are talking about
> > here? I, for one, am not trying to distort the evidence into
> > something it is not.  Nor do I consider this to be an area where
> > it is okay to talk about how things "should (have) be(en)".  So I
> > would appreciate it if you would not imply otherwise.
>
> But you constantly refuse to accept what the language shows.

Wrong, Jens.  I often (but not always) do not accept your inferences
about what the language shows.  The ones that I do not accept are
those that I find untenable.  We are not arguing over facts here; we
are arguing over explanations for the facts.

> [snip]
>
> > True, but there's also the question of accent change and whether
> > it happened during the development of IE.  I think it did.
>
> But *consistently* so that a thematic vowel is never found to
> alternate with zero in dependency of the accent? Why is this honour
> peculiar to the thematic vowel?

It seems readily apparent to me that the zero-grading process did not
operate throughout the history of IE.  What's interesting is that the
forms in IE with the fullest vocalism also seem to be the most
recent.  (An example here is *pélekus 'axe', which is probably a
loanword.)  Now, from what I understand, apocope and syncope are far
more likely with stress-accent than with pitch-accent.  Given this, I
have concluded that, by the end of IE, the language had pitch-accent,
not stress-accent.

> You are simply giving up on the facts and just dreaming up some
> others that will suit you, in blatant contrast to your proclaimed
> ideals.

Why would I do that?  How could I benefit from doing such a thing?  I
can't think of any answer here; can you?

In other words, you are again mistaken about me.

> > True, but it did not have to start out that way.  I keep seeing
> > connections between the 1sg, if indeed from *-ó-x or *-óx, and
> > the 1sg middle and perfect endings.
>
> But this is the 1sg active, primary ending, of thematic stems, and
> only that. Why would that be specially connected with either the
> middle voice or the perfect?

It is "only that" in the language traditionally reconstructed by IE
linguists, and which must be what the language looked like at its
very end.  We are trying to dig deeper than that.

To answer your question, I can say that it is not uncommon in
languages for non-active forms to develop into active forms.  This
process occurred in many early IE descendants, notably Latin and
Greek.  Perhaps it is not unreasonable to posit that the parent
language itself underwent a similar process.

Then again, the *-o: 1sg ending may be the result of sandhi, as you
seem to suggest.

> > > It is prs. *bhéro:, inj. *bhérom. Clearly *bhéro: occupies
> > > the position where one would have expected to see **bhéromi.
> > > Cowgill toyed with the idea that it represents the direct
> > > phonetic development from some such preform, and I tend to
> > > agree.
> >
> > What do you think the phonological processes looked like?  That
> > is, how do you think **bhéromi became *bhéro:?
>
> Much like expected *-oy-bhis ended up being *-ooys in the
> instrumental plural of o-stems.

Well, how did that happen?  What were the phonetic developments?

> > > That the account does not add up. Is that not a problem?
> >
> > Explain, please.
>
> We are running around in circles. I did explain that, and you said
> it was a good point. You then say you have no problem with a wrong
> verbal voice, but that just casts doubt over your scholarly ideals.

Latin _sequo:r_ is translated into English as "I follow" -- that is,
with an *active* voice in English, although the verb is
morphologically *passive* in Latin.  If I understand you correctly,
you seem to be saying that the morphologically passive verbs with
active semantics in Latin are impossible.  Obviously they are not.

I was hoping that you would explain what exactly you meant by "the
account does not add up".

> > With all due respect, how is the evidence being disqualified here?
>
> By being taken to be misleading. If you consider the evidence
> misleading, you get leeway. If you do that a lot, you get so much
> that nothing will have any probative value; that is where you stand
> now, and that is what I take pains to avoid. I am sure some
> evidence is misledaing in the sense that it has changed before we
> got to see it, but if there is not a core of regularity there is no
> probative value.

So if you think the evidence leads somewhere and I think it leads
somewhere else, you are necessarily right and I am necessarily
wrong?  I do not want to play that game.

It seems to me that we are discussing where the evidence leads, so
there is no way to say how it can be taken to be *misleading*.

> > The possibility of connections between 1sg prs. act. "thematic" *-
> > o: if from *-ox, the 1sg prs. mid. *-x-o-i (vel sim.), and the
> > 1sg prf. *-x-e notwithstanding?
>
> We actually have it combined with the thematic vowel in the middle
> voice which is *-a-H2-i, secondary ending *-a-H2.

Where does the *-a come from?

> I cannot imagine what system could contain also active *-o-H2,
> secondary *-o-m. Why would the primary active have the same form as
> the secondary middle except for a difference in selection of
> thematic-vowel variant, which is then prim.act. *-o-H2, sec.mid. *-
> e-H2 ? If it could be proved to exist it would be another matter,
> then I would accept the facts and get cracking at a way to
> integrate them into a wider picture, but I do not depart from self-
> chosen silliness.

Unfortunately I cannot say anything of consequence to this yet, but I
will look deeper into the matter.

- Rob
--- End forwarded message ---

> In celtic Maros = Big/Great
> Maro(s)
> Grand/Immense
>
> Etymologie
>
> Indo-Européen Mar/Moro
>
> Irlandais Mar/Mór . Gallois Mawr. Breton Meur. Manx Mooar
> Sanskrit Maha

Wait a minute. Is this the same root as "sea"? That would make good
sense, considering the awe a Proto-Indo-European tribesman would feel
upon seeing the Caspian or the Black Sea.

Or the mediterrenean. By the way, what´s the story behind "huge"?
Anyone who knows where that word comes from?

Carl Hult

onsdagen den 3 augusti 2005 kl 16.34 skrev C. Darwin Goranson:

> > In celtic Maros = Big/Great
> > Maro(s)
> > Grand/Immense
> >
> > Etymologie
> >
> > Indo-Européen Mar/Moro
> >
> > Irlandais Mar/Mór . Gallois Mawr. Breton Meur. Manx Mooar
> > Sanskrit Maha
>
> Wait a minute. Is this the same root as "sea"? That would make good
> sense, considering the awe a Proto-Indo-European tribesman would feel
> upon seeing the Caspian or the Black Sea.
>
>
>
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>
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>

>   Your DEX reference derives Rom. 'mare' probably from the Latin
> 'mas, maris' "male".  Buck explains further "in designating the male
> animal of a species and consequently the larger", with refs. to
> Puscariu and Tiktin.  Certainly the Rom. would derive from a oblique
> case of rhe Latin word, probably the Acc. 'marem' with the final m
> elided. I'd say that's a pretty good fit phonetically and quite
> reasonable semantics.  What are your objections?
> Dan Milton

    No. Romanian DEX 'tries to manage' two possibilities (-> following
different Romanian important linguists):

       1. mas, marem 'male'

       2. maris 'sea'

   But in my opinion, the semantism didn't fit in both cases.

   1. From 'male', to arrive to derive such a generic and basic term
like 'big'? I could expect an inverse situation (-> to design 'the
male' as 'a big being'), but not such a huge generalization 'male'-
> 'big' (where here, this 'Romanian big' is really applied for any
kind of physical object and represents also the most general term
for 'big').

    In addition, why the notion of 'male' wasn't preserved, at all in
Romanian?
    Also phonetically, (as you have already observed) we  need to
suppose here Only the preservation of the oblique case, in order to
explain the Romanian phonetism: this is a weak point too.

   2. For 'maris' 'sea' the phonetism fit perfectly (Lat i > Rom e )
and no suprise the word 'sea' really exists in Romanian as 'mare'
('sea') too : Ex: 'Marea Neagrã' -> 'Black Sea'.

    However any Romanian native speaker has in his mind a clear
distinction between 'mare' 'big' and 'mare' 'sea'.
The semantism of the two concepts is not at all superposed in
Romanian.

    Even, when we used a methafore like 'a sea of people' 'o mare de
oameni', everybody identifies inside that the word 'mare' is the 'sea'
and not the word 'big' (-> even the 'global' sense of this expression
is 'a huge crowd').

    On the other hand in the Rom. phrase 'un om mare' -> 'a big man':
no concept related to the 'sea' could be imaginable.

    So, to suppose that a 'non-maritime' people arrive to use the
concept of 'sea' to describe 'any kind of big' -> with no trace of a
methaforic sense seems impossible for me.

   3. Finally the Irish (Celtic) word 'mor' exists too, and its
semantism is 100% the same with that one of the Romanian
word 'mare': : the general notion of 'big' with no additional
constraints in its sematic field.
In addition, the phonetisms of these 2 words fits perfectly too.


   Best Regards,
     Marius

Marius, when DEX has  "Probabil lat. mas, maris.", it is citing a
Latin word (in this case meaning "male") in the usual dictionary
manner: Nom., gen.   If the word for "sea" was involved, it would cite
"Mare, maris."

Dan

How about .... Ego requiro tu.   which is a direct translation but is
not idiomatically correct.  The problem is "miss" which has a
particular idiomatic meaning in English, that doesn't translate to
Latin.
Perhaps a more correct phrase would be Ego suspiro tu.  Where suspiro=
yearn might be closer to what might be correct Latin.
I'm not an expert on Latin either, so no guarantees are provided.


On 8/3/05, Håkan Lindgren <h5@...> wrote:
> I know this isn't what Cybalist is for, but I'm wondering if someone could
> help me with a Latin translation.
>
> Someone who thinks I'm a Latin expert wants me to translate "I miss you", as
> said by a daughter to her dead father, into Latin. I have not been able to
> do it. All the dictionaries in the library where I live are from Latin to
> other languages, not the other way around.
>
> Best regards,
> Hakan Lindgren
>
>
>
>
> SPONSORED LINKS
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> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Steve Eddleman <Smokehouse69@g...>
wrote:
> On 8/3/05, Håkan Lindgren <h5@b...> wrote:
> > I know this isn't what Cybalist is for, but I'm wondering if
> > someone could help me with a Latin translation.
> >
> > Someone who thinks I'm a Latin expert wants me to translate
> > "I miss you", as said by a daughter to her dead father, into
> > Latin. I have not been able to do it. All the dictionaries
> > in the library where I live are from Latin to other languages,
> > not the other way around.
>
> How about .... Ego requiro tu.   which is a direct translation
> but is not idiomatically correct.  The problem is "miss" which
> has a particular idiomatic meaning in English, that doesn't
> translate to Latin.
> Perhaps a more correct phrase would be Ego suspiro tu.  Where
> suspiro=yearn might be closer to what might be correct Latin.
> I'm not an expert on Latin either, so no guarantees are provided.

Well this is coming from still another non-expert,
but the dictionary gives the meaning "miss" in the
sense "to feel the loss of what was once enjoyed",
which I think is exactly what we're talking about
here, to 'desiderare' and 'requirere'. Also 'te',
the accusative form of 'tu', is required here, and
'ego' should be omitted unless special emphasis is
required on 'I'.

David

At 5:40:09 PM on Wednesday, August 3, 2005, alexandru_mg3
wrote:

> 3. Finally the Irish (Celtic) word 'mor' exists too, and
> its semantism is 100% the same with that one of the
> Romanian word 'mare': : the general notion of 'big' with
> no additional constraints in its sematic field.

The Irish word is actually <mór> (/mo:r/, not /mor/);
according to Watkins (2000), it's from a suffixed o-grade
*mo:-ro-, from *meh1- 'big'.  It also meant 'great, famous'.

Brian

>I know this isn't what Cybalist is for, but I'm wondering if someone could
>help me with a Latin translation.

The best place for this is alt.language.latin  They do a lot of translating,
normally of mottos.

Peter

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Joao S. Lopes" <josimo70@y...> wrote:
> According to C.T. Onions's Dictionary, < Old French ahuge, ahoge,
ahoege, of unknown origin.
>
> Carl Hult <datalampa@s...> escreveu:Or the mediterrenean. By the way,
what´s the story behind "huge"?
> Anyone who knows where that word comes from?
>

Could it be Germanic perhaps meaning something like "heightened"?

1. Du. hoog, Eng. high, Ger. hoch

2. a suffix similar to Du. ge-, Eng e-/a- (e.g. e-nough, astride,
astray), Ger. ge-?

-Andrew Lancaster

dík, dis´ás, digbhís. From PIE *deik'-. Why do they call Sanskrit
satem, when it behaves like that?

Personally I think (again) that PIE *k' and *kW (mutatis mutandis for
the voiceds and voiced aspirates) were alternating *k/c^ and *kW/k
depending on the environment, and plain *k was non-alternating and
appeared in loans. Now this behaviour on the part of Sanskrit
strengthens my suspicion.


Torsten

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Rob" <magwich78@y...> wrote:

>
> Of course I can see that, on the surface, stem-final vowels seem
to
> be different from the other vowels of the language.  What I'm
> wondering is whether appearances are deceiving here.  My
inclination
> thus far is that they are.

Well, this may be a matter of different goals. I will give priority
any day to an account that manages to accept the material as is. If
we always declare appearances deceitful we get so much leeway that
no rigour will be left.

>
> You correctly point out that the alternations in stem-final vowels
> appear to operate independently of accent.  Alongside this there
is
> the alternation of stressed and full-grade vs. unstressed and zero-
> grade or o-grade.  These processes do not seem to affect
> the "thematic vowels".

We agree up to here.

> To me, that means the "thematic vowels" were
> recent within IE and/or were stressed to begin with.

I conclude the opposite on the same basis. If the special rules that
*do* apply to the thematic vowels were of recent date they should
apply also to the other vowels of the language. Why do they not do
that in your opinion?

> Coupled with
> these things are the indications that, by the time of latest IE,
the
> earlier accent patterns were no longer being followed.

Sure, that's right.

> One can see
> that most of the transparent (i.e. recent) compounds in IE had
> recessive accent.

What are you talking about?

> Furthermore, zero-grade syllables could obviously
> carry accent in latest IE: witness *wl'kWos 'wolf' and
> *septm' 'seven'.

Yes, relevance?

> All this seems to me like evidence of the accent
> weakening from one of stress to one of pitch.

Why so?

> Looking at the o-stem masculine nouns, we have the following:
>
> Nom. sg. *-os pl. *-o:s
> Acc. sg. *-om pl. *-ons
> Gen. sg. *-osyo pl. *-o:m
> Dat. sg. *-o:i pl. *-o:is
> Abl. sg. *-o:d pl. *-o:is
> Ins. sg. *-o: pl. *-o:is
> Loc. sg. *-oi pl. *-oisu

What is this? The instr. is *-o-H1, and the Dat/Abl.pl is *-oy-bhyos.

>
> In my opinion, this can be traced back to an earlier scheme:
>
> Nom. sg. *-o-s pl. *-o-es
> Acc. sg. *-o-m pl. *-o-ns
> Gen. sg. *-o-s-yo pl. *-o-om
> Dat. sg. *-o-ei pl. *-o-eis
> Abl. sg. *-o-ed pl. *-o-eis
> Ins. sg. *-o-e? pl. *-o-eis
> Loc. sg. *-o-i pl. *-o-isu
>
> That is, there was a non-alternating stem vowel in *-o to which
the
> case endings were agglutinated.  My source here is Sihler's New
> Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin (1995).

If you read that carefully you'll see he only takes *-o:is as the
old instrumental plural. The dat./abl. is not treated in his exposé,
but the Vedic form devébhyah. is given in the chart. Besides, it's
common knowledge.

> Looking at the o-stem neuter nouns, we have the following:
>
> Nom./Acc. sg. *-om pl. *-a: < *-ex
>
> The other cases are the same as for the masculines.  Where you see
a
> common thematic vowel in both the singular and plural here, I see
> suppletion.  In other words, I do not consider the vowel in *-ex
to
> have the same origin as that in *-om.

But the neuter pl. only has *-a: in *thematic* stems. That ought to
count for something.

> Looking at the a:-stem neuter nouns, we have the following:
>
> Nom. sg. *-a: pl. *-a:s
> Acc. sg. *-a:m pl. *-a:ns
> Gen. sg. *-a:s pl. *-a:om
> Dat. sg. *-a:i pl. *-a:is
> Abl. sg. *-a:d pl. *-a:is
> Ins. sg. *-a: pl. *-a:is
> Loc. sg. *-a:i pl. *-a:isu

Why do you call them neuter? Do you mean feminine?

Here too some cases are strange: The dat.pl was *-aH2-bhyos (would
be *-a:bhyos in your notation), the instr.pl. was *-aH2-bhis (*-
a:bhis), and the loc.pl. was *-aH2-su (*-a:su); there was no i-
diphthong in these endings.

> Again, this looks like it can be traced to an earlier scheme, with
*-
> a: < *-ex:
>
> Nom. sg. *-ex pl. *-ex-es
> Acc. sg. *-ex-m pl. *-ex-ns
> Gen. sg. *-ex-s pl. *-ex-om
> Dat. sg. *-ex-ei pl. *-ex-eis
> Abl. sg. *-ex-ed pl. *-ex-eis
> Ins. sg. *-ex-e? pl. *-ex-eis
> Loc. sg. *-ex-i pl. *-ex-isu

That is just plain wrong.

>
> The obvious conclusion here is that there was a stem-formant *-ex
to
> which the case endings were agglutinated.  It also seems that this
> formant is identical to the neuter plural ending *-ex.

Sure, the stem was *-e-H2, and the endings followed, just as with
other derivative stems.

> Finally, I think the common element in all of these endings is
that
> the stem-formant was originally *stressed*.  That's probably what
> your "special articulatory prominence" is.  Non-alternating stress
> means non-alternating stressed vowel.  Thus these stem-formants
were
> spared the metaphorical ravages of zero-grading (if that process
was
> still productive when the stem-formants came to be used).

Well, the problem was: Why does the thematic vowel not vary with a
varying accent? You just say there is no varying accent. But there
is, so the problem remains.

> A question remains of why the vocalism in the o-stems is
> regularly /o/ *and* stressed, when the usual pattern is stressed
> and /e/ vs. unstressed and /ø/ or /o/.  My tentative answer is
that
> stressed /o/ comes from earlier stressed /a:/.
>
> Looking at verbs, we seem to find a similar situation (imperfect
> active indicative is used here):
>
> 1sg *-om 1pl *-omes
> 2sg *-es 2pl *-etes
> 3sg *-et 3pl *-ont
>
> These endings obviously look like a combination of "theme vowel"
and
> personal ending.  As you yourself have expertly pointed out, this
> theme vowel is identical to the subjunctive suffix.  Furthermore,
we
> more or less agree that the thematic forms came from earlier
> subjunctives.  Okay, so what causes the alternations in the
vocalism
> of the suffix, then?  It seems to me that, again, the 1sg and 3pl
o-
> vocalism can be explained by rounding (and consequently backing)
in
> the presence of a coda nasal (especially a labial one).  In my
> opinion, the 1pl can be explained as being due to analogy with the
> 1sg.  The e-vocalism elsewhere fits in with the usual pattern of
> stress and /e/, which means that this stem-formant, too, was
stressed
> to begin with.
>
> I don't expect you to agree with everything here (if anything at
> all!) and I'm not trying to persuade you that I'm necessarily
right.
> Rather, I'm just sharing my analyses with you so that you have a
> clearer picture of where I'm coming from.
>
> > > Furthermore, the fact that the "thematic vowel" alternations
are
> > > independent of the accent proves nothing to me, because it
seems
> > > clear from the known evidence that IE's accent system at the
time
> > > of its break-up was different from that which produced much
(if
> > > not most) of the phenomena we see in the language, most
notably
> > > the full-grade/zero-grade alternations and, by extension,
the
> > > syllabic resonants.
> >
> > That is nonsense. The effect of the accent on the distribution
of
> > full grade and zero grade is very transparent and immediately
> > obvious. Why would it only be the stem-final vowels that
have
> > failed to keep that old dependency transparent over time? You
are
> > staking everything on a coincidence.
>
> From the above, I hope you can see that the stem-final vowels also
> seem to fit in with the "old dependency".  However, it seems that
> they were added after the accent ceased to be mobile (i.e.
additional
> syllables no longer attracted the stress).
>
> > > > > Put another way, there does not seem
> > > > > to be any conditioning phenomena that can separate
> > > > > the "thematic vowel" from the other alternating vowels
in
> > > > > IE.  So, either your rule is true everywhere for the
general
> > > > > e/o vowel, or it is not.
> >
> > The thematic vowel rule is true for the thematic vowel
and
> > blatantly false if tentatively applied to other vowels.
>
> Nothing new, there.
>
> > I understand you just don't like the language, but sorry this
is
> > the way it presents itself.
>
> You misunderstand.  It's not a question of liking or disliking the
> language.  For me, it's a question of "What are the facts, and why
> are they the way they are?"

That is not at all the vein you are dealing with the problem in. You
realloy are disqualifying the facts as if you won't have them.

>
> > > > > One example will suffice to disprove it: *(xW)
ré:gs 'king',
> > > > > which under your rule would have been *(xW)ró:gs.
> >
> > No, there is no thematic vowel in that. It refutes *your* stance.
>
> My stance is not one where your rule applies everywhere in IE.  We
do
> agree that to posit such a rule for the entirety of the language
> would not hold, because the facts say otherwise.  My point was, in
> the absence of any conditioning factors, a phonetic rule that
effects
> a given sound must do so wherever that sound exists in a
language.

And what will you do when you come across a language where special
rules are observed to apply to stem-final vowels and other rules to
vowels in other positions? Deny the existence of the facts? That IS
what you are doing. I refuse to follow.

> So, as you said before, the question is whether there were any
> conditioning factors over the thematic vowel.  Again, my tentative
> answer is that there don't seem to have been any that could
satisfy
> your proposed rule.
>
> > > Again, "except for the thematic vowel" implies that there
was
> > > some kind of conditioning factor over the thematic
vowel.
> > > However, there does not seem to be one.
> >
> > There must have been, and you could be more helpful if you
joined
> > the search for its nature instead of just shouting noise to
deny
> > the facts.
>
> All I will say to this is that there is no reason to get personal
> here.

But you are again "just shouting noise to deny the facts". That's
not personal: nobody should do that.

> > > I am fully aware that there is no ban on /e/ + voiced segment
in
> > > IE. My point was, given that and the apparent lack of
any
> > > conditioning factor over the thematic vowel, your hypothesis
does
> > > not seem to be correct.
> >
> > But if the /e/ *is* the thematic vowel, there *is* a ban on /e/
+
> > voiced segment. May that fact not be even addressed?
>
> I would not really consider it a fact, as my analyses seem to
> indicate that there was not just one "thematic vowel".  In other
> words, we are both taking the facts and making inferences from
them.
> Our inferences here happen to be different.  The question is whose
> are more correct, not who is looking at the facts and who is
dreaming
> things.
>
>
> > > With all due respect, what do you think we are talking about
> > > here? I, for one, am not trying to distort the evidence
into
> > > something it is not.  Nor do I consider this to be an area
where
> > > it is okay to talk about how things "should (have) be(en)".
So I
> > > would appreciate it if you would not imply otherwise.
> >
> > But you constantly refuse to accept what the language shows.
>
> Wrong, Jens.  I often (but not always) do not accept your
inferences
> about what the language shows.  The ones that I do not accept are
> those that I find untenable.  We are not arguing over facts here;
we
> are arguing over explanations for the facts.

But do you not refuse to accept that the special behaviour displayed
by the thematic vowel is ONLY seen in stem-final position? If not,
where did you take that fact into account?

>
> > [snip]
> >
> > > True, but there's also the question of accent change and
whether
> > > it happened during the development of IE.  I think it did.
> >
> > But *consistently* so that a thematic vowel is never found to
> > alternate with zero in dependency of the accent? Why is this
honour
> > peculiar to the thematic vowel?
>
> It seems readily apparent to me that the zero-grading process did
not
> operate throughout the history of IE.  What's interesting is that
the
> forms in IE with the fullest vocalism also seem to be the most
> recent.  (An example here is *pélekus 'axe', which is probably a
> loanword.)  Now, from what I understand, apocope and syncope are
far
> more likely with stress-accent than with pitch-accent.  Given
this, I
> have concluded that, by the end of IE, the language had pitch-
accent,
> not stress-accent.
>
> > You are simply giving up on the facts and just dreaming up
some
> > others that will suit you, in blatant contrast to your
proclaimed
> > ideals.
>
> Why would I do that?  How could I benefit from doing such a
thing?  I
> can't think of any answer here; can you?

Hypocrits act that way.

> In other words, you are again mistaken about me.

Only if you are not the hipocrit I have taken you for.

> > > True, but it did not have to start out that way.  I keep
seeing
> > > connections between the 1sg, if indeed from *-ó-x or *-óx,
and
> > > the 1sg middle and perfect endings.
> >
> > But this is the 1sg active, primary ending, of thematic stems,
and
> > only that. Why would that be specially connected with either the
> > middle voice or the perfect?
>
> It is "only that" in the language traditionally reconstructed by
IE
> linguists, and which must be what the language looked like at its
> very end.  We are trying to dig deeper than that.
>
> To answer your question, I can say that it is not uncommon in
> languages for non-active forms to develop into active forms.  This
> process occurred in many early IE descendants, notably Latin and
> Greek.  Perhaps it is not unreasonable to posit that the parent
> language itself underwent a similar process.
>
> Then again, the *-o: 1sg ending may be the result of sandhi, as
you
> seem to suggest.
>
> > > > It is prs. *bhéro:, inj. *bhérom. Clearly *bhéro: occupies
> > > > the position where one would have expected to see **bhéromi.
> > > > Cowgill toyed with the idea that it represents the direct
> > > > phonetic development from some such preform, and I tend
to
> > > > agree.
> > >
> > > What do you think the phonological processes looked like?
That
> > > is, how do you think **bhéromi became *bhéro:?
> >
> > Much like expected *-oy-bhis ended up being *-ooys in the
> > instrumental plural of o-stems.
>
> Well, how did that happen?  What were the phonetic developments?
>
> > > > That the account does not add up. Is that not a problem?
> > >
> > > Explain, please.
> >
> > We are running around in circles. I did explain that, and you
said
> > it was a good point. You then say you have no problem with a
wrong
> > verbal voice, but that just casts doubt over your scholarly
ideals.
>
> Latin _sequo:r_ is translated into English as "I follow" -- that
is,
> with an *active* voice in English, although the verb is
> morphologically *passive* in Latin.  If I understand you
correctly,
> you seem to be saying that the morphologically passive verbs with
> active semantics in Latin are impossible.  Obviously they are not.

Where did I say that? Latin sequor is not opposed to a passive, IE *-
o: is the active opposed to a middle which is *-aH2i. Why would *-o:
then be an old middle-voice form? With the wrong colour of the
thematic vowel, and without the primary marker?

> I was hoping that you would explain what exactly you meant by "the
> account does not add up".
>
> > > With all due respect, how is the evidence being disqualified
here?
> >
> > By being taken to be misleading. If you consider the evidence
> > misleading, you get leeway. If you do that a lot, you get so
much
> > that nothing will have any probative value; that is where you
stand
> > now, and that is what I take pains to avoid. I am sure
some
> > evidence is misledaing in the sense that it has changed before
we
> > got to see it, but if there is not a core of regularity there is
no
> > probative value.
>
> So if you think the evidence leads somewhere and I think it leads
> somewhere else, you are necessarily right and I am necessarily
> wrong?  I do not want to play that game.
>
> It seems to me that we are discussing where the evidence leads, so
> there is no way to say how it can be taken to be *misleading*.

But you are the one constantly disqualifying very clear evidence
just because you would rather like it to be different. You say
appearances are deceitful.

> > > The possibility of connections between 1sg prs.
act. "thematic" *-
> > > o: if from *-ox, the 1sg prs. mid. *-x-o-i (vel sim.), and
the
> > > 1sg prf. *-x-e notwithstanding?
> >
> > We actually have it combined with the thematic vowel in the
middle
> > voice which is *-a-H2-i, secondary ending *-a-H2.
>
> Where does the *-a come from?

That is the thematic vowel *-e-, here coloured to *-a- by the
contiguous *H2.


> > I cannot imagine what system could contain also active *-o-
H2,
> > secondary *-o-m. Why would the primary active have the same form
as
> > the secondary middle except for a difference in selection
of
> > thematic-vowel variant, which is then prim.act. *-o-H2, sec.mid.
*-
> > e-H2 ? If it could be proved to exist it would be another
matter,
> > then I would accept the facts and get cracking at a way
to
> > integrate them into a wider picture, but I do not depart from
self-
> > chosen silliness.
>
> Unfortunately I cannot say anything of consequence to this yet,
but I
> will look deeper into the matter.

I can wait.

Jens