Jump to content

Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2022 October 9

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Language desk
< October 8 << Sep | October | Nov >> October 10 >
Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.


October 9

[edit]

PIE's I pronoun

[edit]

Is it known why PIE used suppletion in the declensions of the 1st-person pronoun *éǵh₂, like *méynos, móyos and *h₁me-, rather than using the same starting letter "e" for recognizability and simplicity? Brandmeistertalk 11:08, 9 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Or m-. It's so long way back, that there are only theories, I guess. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 11:20, 9 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
And according to wiktionary, for some reason there were at least two forms for "my" - *méynos and *móyos. Brandmeistertalk 11:30, 9 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Well, PIE had a lot of cases, which could probably get conflated, and also a bunch of suffixes and afixes. I guess that could have played a part. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 13:33, 9 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]