3 ms·

> all over the old IE languages, neuter nouns have the same form for the nominative and the accusative The lack of distinction between neuter nominative and ne

> all over the old IE languages, neuter nouns have the same form for the nominative and the accusative The lack of distinction between neuter nominative and neuter accusative is not just true of nouns in old IE languages. It's true of all grammatical categories in virtually all modern IE languages too (with some very obscure exceptions). Consider German articles der/den vs. das/das. Or English pronouns she/her vs. it/it. More info: https://latin.stackexchange.com/questions/18/accusative-equals-nominative-for-neuter-words-how-universal-is-this-and-why https://latin.stackexchange.com/questions/18/accusative-equa... https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/9105/why-do-neuter-nominative-and-accusative-always-agree-in-ie-languages https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/9105/why-do-... Apparently one of the obscure exceptions is the Russian word оно - but they are indeed quite rare.

Mlller 6y ago
Correct: According to the theory outlined above, no neutral form could have been a PIE nominative, because the PIE nominative would have been marked willfully acting entities. So the root cause would have been the distinction made for nouns (“can willfully act” – “cannot willfully act”), and this must affect all words with noun-agreement (i.e. adj., det.) or words substituting, deputizing nouns (i.e. pronouns). It is wonderful that this formerly semantic system (if the theory is correct) has left its formal trace over millennia and a range of thousands of miles. Such preservation was likely in so far as otherwise a new suffix-inflectional distinction had to be introduced in order to distinguish the nominative neuter from the accusative neuter; and in the history of the IE languages, suffix-inflectional distinctions are rather removed than built.

3 ms·

> all over the old IE languages, neuter nouns have the same form for the nominative and the accusative The lack of distinction between neuter nominative and ne

by umanwizard 6y ago

Mlller 6y ago
Correct: According to the theory outlined above, no neutral form could have been a PIE nominative, because the PIE nominative would have been marked willfully acting entities. So the root cause would have been the distinction made for nouns (“can willfully act” – “cannot willfully act”), and this must affect all words with noun-agreement (i.e. adj., det.) or words substituting, deputizing nouns (i.e. pronouns). It is wonderful that this formerly semantic system (if the theory is correct) has left its formal trace over millennia and a range of thousands of miles. Such preservation was likely in so far as otherwise a new suffix-inflectional distinction had to be introduced in order to distinguish the nominative neuter from the accusative neuter; and in the history of the IE languages, suffix-inflectional distinctions are rather removed than built.