Re: Indo-European question

En réponse à Patrick Dunn <tb0pwd1@...>:

> I just ordered a dictionary of Indo-European roots to play with, and I
> started wondering -- how did we get inflectional endings?
>
> Were they originally postpositions which became attached to the nouns?
That's the usual hypothesis. But note that in the PIE language usually
described, those postpositions usually have become already partly attached to
the roots as endings.

> If so, why do they seem to differ among languages so much?
Because PIE had a LOT of postpositions, or so it seems. Also, don't forget the
sound changes that can make the same sound diverge into two new phonemes
depending on the environment, whether it is in different languages or even in
the same language!

  -um in Old
> English marks the plural dative, but in Latin -um marks the accusative
> and
> neuter of some nouns.
>
Here again, don't forget the sound changes, which can make morphemes of
different origins sound the same, or a single morpheme break down into
different ones. Also, there's a theory that PIE was an active language.
Becoming accusative could have been done in many different ways depending on
the different dialects of PIE that led to the Indo-European families.

> Also, why do different nouns have different endings for different
> genders?
> If, say, the genitive post-position was -i, why is -ae the feminine
> Latin
> ending?  Wouldn't it be -i accross the board?
>
Well, there could be a sound change a-i > ae, while Ci would stay as it is,
explaining the differences. Also, it seems that the endings of languages like
Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, Gaulish or the like often come from the merging of
*various* PIE morphemes, which would have been used differently among the
different dialects of PIE, explaining the diversity that seems to bother you.

> Or am I guessing wrong?  Keep in mind, I'm training to be a
> philologist,
> not a linguist.  *snickers*
>
Well, I'm not a linguist at all, but my booklet about Indo-European is quite
impressive by the quality of the information it gives :) .

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

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