2019/09/25 by Michiel de Vaan · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · Mathematics · #Deixis #Genitive case #History #Interrogative #Lexicography and Language Studies #Linguistics #Linguistics and Cultural Studies #Linguistics and language evolution #Locative case #Mathematics #Noun #Philosophy #Plural #Pronoun #Sign (mathematics)
paper · doi:10.1163/9789004409354_015
openalex publication_date 2019/09/25 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/02
PIE *sm and *si are both attested in the meaning ‘one’ and as an element of deictic pronouns. In the latter case, their distribution is complementary: *sm is found in the oblique masculine and *si in the feminine. Comparison with the genitive *tosio suggests that *si was originally used for inanimates, confirming that the feminine arose out of inanimate reference. The obliques in *sm started in the locative singular *-sm-i, maybe to disambiguate the original locatives *ʔei, *toi from the homonymous nominative plural forms. PIE *si belongs to Pre-PIE *sim (Skt. sīm, Proto-Celtic *sim), *sé, *so, in the same way as, for instance, interrogative *kwi, *kwim, *kwé, *kwo belong together. The unusual ablaut in these pronouns can be explained on the basis of phonological and syntactic developments between Proto-Indo-Uralic and PIE. The rise of the PIE so/to-pronoun may go back to *s- and *t-pronouns at the Indo-Uralic stage, followed by a Pre-PIE sound change *ti > *si. The relative chronology requires positing at least the following stages: Proto-Indo-Uralic, Early Pre-PIE, Late Pre-PIE, Early PIE (= Indo-Anatolian), and Late PIE.