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Loss of sigmatic nominative in IE langs | ||
Tags: Indo-European Languages | Grammar | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| rippletoad Newbie United States Joined 4673 days ago 5 posts - 8 votes | Message 1 of 8 06 January 2012 at 3:09am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Has anyone noticed that the older Indo European languages had a lot of nominatives that ended with -s, -us, -os, -as, and so on, but the modern languages rarely have those (along with a lot of loss of inflection in the western European ones)? The only ones with such nominatives that I know that are around seem to be Baltic languages and Greek. I think this loss is a bit lamentable, but anyways, why did this happen? Just a simple process that happened along with losing inflections?
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| Mauritz Octoglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 4879 days ago 223 posts - 325 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, EnglishC2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, Esperanto, French Studies: Old English, Yiddish, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, Korean, Portuguese, Welsh, Icelandic, Afrikaans | Message 2 of 8 06 January 2012 at 5:03am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Well, I guess they pretty much disappeared because of phonological reasons. The Germanic languages first
changed the ending into "*-az" (PIE *wĺ̥kʷos -> PGer *wulfaz), which later disappeared in West Germanic languages (OE wulf). Between Proto-Norse and Old Norse, the ending changed from "*-az" to a single sound between /z/ and /r/ and finally (around the 11th century) a simple thrilled /r/ sound, causing "*wulfaz" to become "úlfr" in ON. The original PIE ending remained however in Gothic, hence the Gothic "wulfs". Proto-Slavic experienced a similar economical reduction, causing the original ending to become simply "*-u", which first became a "reduced vowel" eventually more or less disappeared completely (PIE *wĺ̥kʷos -> *vьlkъ); hence the "hard sign" in Russian (ъ). Even Proto-Indo-Iranian experienced this kind of a reduction, causing the sibilant to disappear: PIE "*wĺ̥kʷos" -> Sanskrit "vṛ́ka" and Old Iranian "varkana". I can't really argue for Celtic languages and other interesting IE languages and sub-branches, but it seems to me that the primary reason for the loss of the original sibilant PIE endings is economical. As far as I know, the only IE languages that still use variants of them are Greek, Latvian, Lithuanian and Icelandic (please correct me if I'm wrong!). 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| s0fist Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4857 days ago 260 posts - 445 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: Sign Language, German, Spanish, French | Message 3 of 8 06 January 2012 at 6:48am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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As a complete ignoramus in the topic, may I ask if older I-E languages used s's as indication of plural form in nominatives (as much as modern descendants or at all)?
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 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6514 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 8 06 January 2012 at 10:30am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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In Old Norse the -s in Nominative had become an -r, cfr. Mauritz' úlfr (wolf), bus the nominate plural had also and -r, although after a wowel which can be -a-, -u- or -i-: úlfar. Maybe Mauritz knows whether this -r also comes from an earlier -z, I don't.
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| a3 Triglot Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 5067 days ago 273 posts - 370 votes Speaks: Bulgarian*, English, Russian Studies: Portuguese, German, Italian, Spanish, Norwegian, Finnish | Message 5 of 8 06 January 2012 at 3:19pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Isn't it because -us and -s are case endings and most modern indoeuropean languages have lost their cases? Having s at the end of each noun is a bit redundant.
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| Mauritz Octoglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 4879 days ago 223 posts - 325 votes Speaks: Swedish*, EnglishC2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, Esperanto, French Studies: Old English, Yiddish, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, Korean, Portuguese, Welsh, Icelandic, Afrikaans | Message 6 of 8 06 January 2012 at 6:31pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Yes, sibilant plural endings were common for nominatives, so PIE "*wĺ̥kʷos" became *wĺ̥kʷoes.
That's correct. Compare PGer "*wulfōz" with OE "wulfas" and ON "úlfar". Rhoticism was very common in Germanic languages and seemingly more so in North Germanic languages: compare PGer "*was" became ON "var", but remained "was" in English (note, however, German "war"!). Gothic, however, did not undergo rhotacism and retained the older forms: compare Gothic "dius" (animal) with Swedish "djur", English "deer" and German "Tier".
This could be a viable explanation, but it only explains why the nominative ending disappeared. On the other hand, the genitive ending was and still often is a sibilant. Edited by Mauritz on 06 January 2012 at 6:37pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6514 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 8 07 January 2012 at 1:28am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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But in femininum in Icelandic the genetive ending isn't -s, but -ar. Actually we can joking use this in Danish: "hinder" for "hendes" - but you will never see this in writing.
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| Mauritz Octoglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 4879 days ago 223 posts - 325 votes Speaks: Swedish*, EnglishC2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, Esperanto, French Studies: Old English, Yiddish, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, Korean, Portuguese, Welsh, Icelandic, Afrikaans | Message 8 of 8 07 January 2012 at 3:23am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Once again a sign of Germanic rhotacism. Hence Icelandic "hennar" and OE "hiere" (ME "her"), but Gothic "izos".
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