The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread's Sequel

[Ketsuban]

Although I don't fully agree with Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, I think the mainstream theory doesn't explain the origin of s-mobile, which IMHO could be some kind of fossilized (i.e. no longer productive) prefix.

The usual explanation is that it's a fully phonological process where a final -s on one word in a clause like *wĺ̥kʷoms péḱyonti "they are looking at the wolves" bleeds over to the start of the following word (*wĺ̥kʷoms spéḱyonti).

[Talskubilos]

Although I don't fully agree with Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, I think the mainstream theory doesn't explain the origin of s-mobile, which IMHO could be some kind of fossilized (i.e. no longer productive) prefix.

The usual explanation is that it's a fully phonological process where a final -s on one word in a clause like *wĺ̥kʷoms péḱyonti "they are looking at the wolves" bleeds over to the start of the following word (*wĺ̥kʷoms spéḱyonti).

It looks uncovincing to me.

[hwhatting]

The usual explanation is that it's a fully phonological process where a final -s on one word in a clause like *wĺ̥kʷoms péḱyonti "they are looking at the wolves" bleeds over to the start of the following word (*wĺ̥kʷoms spéḱyonti).

It may also have happened the other way round in some cases, a root starting with /s/ losing it that way. In general, roots beginning with /sC/ must have existed in order to make the re-analysis possible. And I'd assume that a more typical case would be that the /s/ comes from the nominative case of a subject. There may also be cases where the /s/ comes from prepositions / prefixes like *abs, *uds, *ens.

It looks uncovincing to me.

Processes like that exist. Look at the history of Englis adder, or older English nuncle as a by-form of uncle, where the final /n/ of the indefinite article and / or possessive pronouns mine, thine caused the deletion in one case and the accretion in another case of an initial /n/ (there are more cases of this process than those two words, I don't have time now to chase them all up).

[Travis B.]

The usual explanation is that it's a fully phonological process where a final -s on one word in a clause like *wĺ̥kʷoms péḱyonti "they are looking at the wolves" bleeds over to the start of the following word (*wĺ̥kʷoms spéḱyonti).

It may also have happened the other way round in some cases, a root starting with /s/ losing it that way. In general, roots beginning with /sC/ must have existed in order to make the re-analysis possible. And I'd assume that a more typical case would be that the /s/ comes from the nominative case of a subject. There may also be cases where the /s/ comes from prepositions / prefixes like *abs, *uds, *ens.

It looks uncovincing to me.

Processes like that exist. Look at the history of Englis adder, or older English nuncle as a by-form of uncle, where the final /n/ of the indefinite article and / or possessive pronouns mine, thine caused the deletion in one case and the accretion in another case of an initial /n/ (there are more cases of this process than those two words, I don't have time now to chase them all up).

A classic example of this is the development of the High German -st 2nd sg. ending. The original 2nd sg. ending was -s, descended from WGmc -t, which is still reflected in, say, Dutch. However, du came after 2nd sg. verbs so often that a /t/ ended up getting glued onto the 2nd sg. ending.

[Zju]

Although I don't fully agree with Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, I think the mainstream theory doesn't explain the origin of s-mobile, which IMHO could be some kind of fossilized (i.e. no longer productive) prefix.

The usual explanation is that it's a fully phonological process where a final -s on one word in a clause like *wĺ̥kʷoms péḱyonti "they are looking at the wolves" bleeds over to the start of the following word (*wĺ̥kʷoms spéḱyonti).

It looks uncovincing to me.

Opinions hold zero argumentational weight.

[bradrn]

The usual explanation is that it's a fully phonological process where a final -s on one word in a clause like *wĺ̥kʷoms péḱyonti "they are looking at the wolves" bleeds over to the start of the following word (*wĺ̥kʷoms spéḱyonti).

It looks uncovincing to me.

Opinions hold zero argumentational weight.

Well, to be fair, most diachronical argumentation ultimately boils down to ‘it looks convincing/unconvincing to me’…

[hwhatting]

The original 2nd sg. ending was -s, descended from WGmc -t, which is still reflected in, say, Dutch.

No, /s/ goes back all the way to PIE; /t/ is the 2nd sg. only, historically, in the forms descending from the PIE perfect (past tense and praeteritopraesentia like the modal verbs). The Dutch /t/ is due to the synchronical 2nd sg. being 2nd plural originally, like in English. The rest of what you stated is correct.

[Travis B.]

The original 2nd sg. ending was -s, descended from WGmc -t, which is still reflected in, say, Dutch.

No, /s/ goes back all the way to PIE; /t/ is the 2nd sg. only, historically, in the forms descending from the PIE perfect (past tense and praeteritopraesentia like the modal verbs). The Dutch /t/ is due to the synchronical 2nd sg. being 2nd plural originally, like in English. The rest of what you stated is correct.

Okay I am officially an idiot. I forgot completely that the Dutch 2nd sg. is really originally a 2nd pl.

[Zju]

It looks uncovincing to me.

Opinions hold zero argumentational weight.

Well, to be fair, most diachronical argumentation ultimately boils down to ‘it looks convincing/unconvincing to me’…

Sure. What's also true is that when there is an established hypothesis X and a fringe hypothesis Y, saying 'X looks unconvincing' does nothing to substantiate Y, and is wholly unconvincing in and of itself to people who support X (who - correct me if I'm mistaken - happen to be the majority of the people who have studied the area).

Stating that the currently assumed way of s-mobile origin 'looks unconvincing', while addressing none of the criticisms to one's own pet hypothesis nor adding additional arguments, is non-starter.

[WeepingElf]

Opinions hold zero argumentational weight.

Well, to be fair, most diachronical argumentation ultimately boils down to ‘it looks convincing/unconvincing to me’…

Sure. What's also true is that when there is an established hypothesis X and a fringe hypothesis Y, saying 'X looks unconvincing' does nothing to substantiate Y, and is wholly unconvincing in and of itself to people who support X (who - correct me if I'm mistaken - happen to be the majority of the people who have studied the area).

Stating that the currently assumed way of s-mobile origin 'looks unconvincing', while addressing none of the criticisms to one's own pet hypothesis nor adding additional arguments, is non-starter.

AMEN!

[Glass Half Baked]

Look, if we relied on evidence and facts, this thread would be four posts long. Every single one of you has a pet etymology based solely on vibes.

[Zju]

Look, if we relied on evidence and facts, this thread would be four posts long. Every single one of you has a pet etymology based solely on vibes.

If we relied on evidence and facts, this thread would be four...ty pages long. There's plenty to talk about while maintaing some discussion even a few notches more reasonable than "Nah, mainstream view X is unconvincing and wrong. Period."

[Talskubilos]

It looks uncovincing to me.

Processes like that exist. Look at the history of Englis adder, or older English nuncle as a by-form of uncle, where the final /n/ of the indefinite article and / or possessive pronouns mine, thine caused the deletion in one case and the accretion in another case of an initial /n/ (there are more cases of this process than those two words, I don't have time now to chase them all up).

Of course, reanalysis processes do occur in real, nowadays languages, but PIE is another thing. On the other hand, if such a thing had actually happened, we'd be left with the question of the origin of the nominative suffix *-s, which has been proposed to be an enclitic form of the demonstrative *so- (see here). So perhaps "s-mobile" could be a remnant of a prefixed demonstrative.

[WeepingElf]

It looks uncovincing to me.

Processes like that exist. Look at the history of Englis adder, or older English nuncle as a by-form of uncle, where the final /n/ of the indefinite article and / or possessive pronouns mine, thine caused the deletion in one case and the accretion in another case of an initial /n/ (there are more cases of this process than those two words, I don't have time now to chase them all up).

Of course, reanalysis processes do occur in real, nowadays languages, but PIE is another thing.

No, not really. PIE was a real language, even if our knowledge of it is limited, so we can assume that the same kind of processes happened there as in real, nowadays languages.

On the other hand, if such a thing had actually happened, we'd be left with the question of the origin of the nominative suffix *-s, which has been proposed to be an enclitic form of the demonstrative *so- (see here). So perhaps "s-mobile" could be a remnant of a prefixed demonstrative.

Indeed, there are various theories about the origin of the nominative singular suffix *-s, but they do not really impact the mainstream opinion about s-mobile. Fact is, PIE had this suffix, for which reason ever, so it may have left its mark on following words, especially considering that an overt suffix for the least marked form of the noun made it vulnerable to a reanalysis that did away with it.

[Travis B.]

No, not really. PIE was a real language, even if our knowledge of it is limited, so we can assume that the same kind of processes happened there as in real, nowadays languages.

This is something I personally favor in proto-language discussions. Just because a language is reconstructed as we know it does not mean that it as a language spoken by real people in the past is any different from any other language. PIE-speakers were real human beings just like any of us, not just figments of linguists' imaginations.

[Talskubilos]

This is something I personally favor in proto-language discussions. Just because a language is reconstructed as we know it does not mean that it as a language spoken by real people in the past is any different from any other language. PIE-speakers were real human beings just like any of us, not just figments of linguists' imaginations.

I disagree. A reconstructed proto-language would never be identical to the "real thing", among other reasons because of loanwords and cross-borrowing. In his book Archaeology and language, Collin Renfrew gives a funny example of Roman soldiers drinking beer and smoking tobacco at a café because these words appear in Romance languages and thus they would be attributed to Proto-Romance.

[Talskubilos]

Indeed, there are various theories about the origin of the nominative singular suffix *-s, but they do not really impact the mainstream opinion about s-mobile. Fact is, PIE had this suffix, for which reason ever, so it may have left its mark on following words, especially considering that an overt suffix for the least marked form of the noun made it vulnerable to a reanalysis that did away with it.

A rather weak explanation to me.

[Travis B.]

This is something I personally favor in proto-language discussions. Just because a language is reconstructed as we know it does not mean that it as a language spoken by real people in the past is any different from any other language. PIE-speakers were real human beings just like any of us, not just figments of linguists' imaginations.

I disagree. A reconstructed proto-language would never be identical to the "real thing", among other reasons because of loanwords and cross-borrowing. In his book Archaeology and language, Collin Renfrew gives a funny example of Roman soldiers drinking beer and smoking tobacco at a café because these words appear in Romance languages and thus they would be attributed to Proto-Romance.

Umm, just because there have been common loans into languages throughout a family that cannot actually be projected back into their proto-language does not mean that proto-languages do not behave like any other human languages. Your argument here is "because of certain edge-cases such as putative comparata for beer and tobacco that reconstruction fails for, we throw all of comparative linguistics out the window and we pretend that proto-languages don't behave like real languages do".

[bradrn]

This is something I personally favor in proto-language discussions. Just because a language is reconstructed as we know it does not mean that it as a language spoken by real people in the past is any different from any other language. PIE-speakers were real human beings just like any of us, not just figments of linguists' imaginations.

I disagree. A reconstructed proto-language would never be identical to the "real thing", among other reasons because of loanwords and cross-borrowing. In his book Archaeology and language, Collin Renfrew gives a funny example of Roman soldiers drinking beer and smoking tobacco at a café because these words appear in Romance languages and thus they would be attributed to Proto-Romance.

Umm, just because there have been common loans into languages throughout a family that cannot actually be projected back into their proto-language does not mean that proto-languages do not behave like any other human languages. Your argument here is "because of certain edge-cases such as putative comparata for beer and tobacco that reconstruction fails for, we throw all of comparative linguistics out the window and we pretend that proto-languages don't behave like real languages do".

And the really stupid thing about this argument is that the comparative method doesn’t even necessarily fail in these cases: loanwords are detectable when they don’t follow the expected sound correspondences.

[Zju]

Indeed, there are various theories about the origin of the nominative singular suffix *-s, but they do not really impact the mainstream opinion about s-mobile. Fact is, PIE had this suffix, for which reason ever, so it may have left its mark on following words, especially considering that an overt suffix for the least marked form of the noun made it vulnerable to a reanalysis that did away with it.

A rather weak explanation to me.

Still just an opnion of yours that does nothing to convince the rest of us. Why do you think it's weak explanation?