Accentual types of PIE
Accentual types of PIE
I've been rereading the books about PIE by Szemerényi and Beekes, and while Szemerényi doesn't mention much about the various types of accentuation (proterodynamic, hysterodynamic, static, and the others), Beekes talks a very great deal about them. Is there much significance in these accentual types, or is the whole subject just something which Beekes is unwittingly making out to appear more important than it really is?
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Re: Accentual types of PIE
It is not clear what, if any significance (sematnically or gramatically) the accent/ablaut patterns had, but the fact is that there are significant patterns. In addition to those two, I also have another by Michael Meyer-Brügger, which discusses the issue in a way similar to Beekes.bricka wrote:I've been rereading the books about PIE by Szemerényi and Beekes, and while Szemerényi doesn't mention much about the various types of accentuation (proterodynamic, hysterodynamic, static, and the others), Beekes talks a very great deal about them. Is there much significance in these accentual types, or is the whole subject just something which Beekes is unwittingly making out to appear more important than it really is?
The general suggestion is that these type were somehow distinct pre-syncope, but I don't know of anyone (other than Glenn Gordon or Phoenix) who has made any proposals for what the pre-syncope system looked like. I may be able to comment on this more, later tonight.
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One of the confusing things is how accent and ablaut are tied to eachother, but not always; there is a fairly strong relationship in nouns and adjectives, but not as much in verbs.
In nouns, accent-ablaut patterns are tied pretty strongly to the kind of suffix the noun has. In verbs, the ablaut pattern can be more complicated because it will depend on the aspect-stem type, voice, and mood in some cases.
The two main accent-ablaut types in the nouns is Hysterodynamic and Proterodynamic, though there are also examples of Acrodynamic and Holodynamic types.
What distinguishes these types is where the accent is in the strong and weak cases (which correspond, mostly, to direct and weak cases). A fully declined noun can be composed of a root, suffix, and ending - or just a root and an ending.
In the Hysterodynamic nouns, the accent shifts between the suffix and the ending:
*ph₂-ter- 'father'
Nom. *ph₂-tér-s > ph₂tḗr
Gen. *ph₂-tr-ós > ph₂trós
These also tend to be derived masculine nouns, especially those in *-r (esp. *-ter) and *-n, whereas neuter nouns in *-r and *-n are (almost) exclusively Proterodynamic. The feminine nouns in *-eh₂ and also a Hysterodynamic type, except for the 'woman' itself: *gʷenh₂- is Proterodynamic.
Proterodynamic nouns shift the accent between the root and the stem:
*gʷen-h₂- 'woman'
Nom. *gʷén-h₂-∅ > gʷénh₂
Gen. *gʷn-éh₂-s > gʷn̩éh₂s
The most interesting thing about the Proterodynamic inflexion is that all the neuter nouns in *-men- and the heteroclitic *-r/n- nouns are clearly of this type.
There is also the Holodynamic type, which shifts the accent between the root and the ending, ignoring the suffix entirely. Part of the problem is that Beekes throws this type together with the Hysterodynamic nouns:
*dʰéǵʰom 'earth'
Nom. dʰéǵʰ-om-s > dʰéǵʰōm
Gen. dʰǵʰ-m-és > (dʰ)ǵʰmés (with various reflexes of the TK cluster)
I haven't read about this stuff in a while, so I might look at the relevant sections of Meier-Brügger again (from which a lot of this post was taken).
In nouns, accent-ablaut patterns are tied pretty strongly to the kind of suffix the noun has. In verbs, the ablaut pattern can be more complicated because it will depend on the aspect-stem type, voice, and mood in some cases.
The two main accent-ablaut types in the nouns is Hysterodynamic and Proterodynamic, though there are also examples of Acrodynamic and Holodynamic types.
What distinguishes these types is where the accent is in the strong and weak cases (which correspond, mostly, to direct and weak cases). A fully declined noun can be composed of a root, suffix, and ending - or just a root and an ending.
In the Hysterodynamic nouns, the accent shifts between the suffix and the ending:
*ph₂-ter- 'father'
Nom. *ph₂-tér-s > ph₂tḗr
Gen. *ph₂-tr-ós > ph₂trós
These also tend to be derived masculine nouns, especially those in *-r (esp. *-ter) and *-n, whereas neuter nouns in *-r and *-n are (almost) exclusively Proterodynamic. The feminine nouns in *-eh₂ and also a Hysterodynamic type, except for the 'woman' itself: *gʷenh₂- is Proterodynamic.
Proterodynamic nouns shift the accent between the root and the stem:
*gʷen-h₂- 'woman'
Nom. *gʷén-h₂-∅ > gʷénh₂
Gen. *gʷn-éh₂-s > gʷn̩éh₂s
The most interesting thing about the Proterodynamic inflexion is that all the neuter nouns in *-men- and the heteroclitic *-r/n- nouns are clearly of this type.
There is also the Holodynamic type, which shifts the accent between the root and the ending, ignoring the suffix entirely. Part of the problem is that Beekes throws this type together with the Hysterodynamic nouns:
*dʰéǵʰom 'earth'
Nom. dʰéǵʰ-om-s > dʰéǵʰōm
Gen. dʰǵʰ-m-és > (dʰ)ǵʰmés (with various reflexes of the TK cluster)
I haven't read about this stuff in a while, so I might look at the relevant sections of Meier-Brügger again (from which a lot of this post was taken).
As TheGoatMan mentions, I've attempted to make reconstructions of pre-syncope PIE. But it's safe to say that I, like everybody else, don't fully understand what is going on.
What I find remarkable is that when you have a stem and place a suffix behind it the accent moves towards the suffix. That really looks like a pattern which came into being due to a fixed stress +syncope.
The fact that it seems to have no functional load besides somewhat distinguishing Neuters from Animates makes it all the more suspicious as being rather a result of phonemic developments rather than a morphological device.
While all of the above makes me suspicious, it is no proof that there ever was syncope.
I'm afraid that the only way to safely show that syncope took place is to find loanwords in PIE that have ablaut and can be shown to have had unsyncopated vowels in the original form. Other than that we could try to find cognates between some other language family. But obviously, in that scenario you're stepping into the world of long-distance proto-language reconstruction which is not currently yielding substantially clear enough reconstructions to even be able to tell whether syncope took place or not.
What I find remarkable is that when you have a stem and place a suffix behind it the accent moves towards the suffix. That really looks like a pattern which came into being due to a fixed stress +syncope.
The fact that it seems to have no functional load besides somewhat distinguishing Neuters from Animates makes it all the more suspicious as being rather a result of phonemic developments rather than a morphological device.
While all of the above makes me suspicious, it is no proof that there ever was syncope.
I'm afraid that the only way to safely show that syncope took place is to find loanwords in PIE that have ablaut and can be shown to have had unsyncopated vowels in the original form. Other than that we could try to find cognates between some other language family. But obviously, in that scenario you're stepping into the world of long-distance proto-language reconstruction which is not currently yielding substantially clear enough reconstructions to even be able to tell whether syncope took place or not.
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