Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.1985, Qupperneq 102

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Jörundur Hilmarsson
tendency to replace the gen.sg. of the type *sH2uéns by the type
*sH2unós which in tum became *suH2nós through laryngeal metathesis
(cf. Beekes op.cit., p. 6) had probably started already in Late-Indo-
European. A derivative in -to- from a later stem *suH2n- would then
appear as *suH2nto- (or perhaps súHýUo- which would lead to the
same result in Germanic, cf. below), because this formation demanded
an unaccentuated -ío-suffix. It might perhaps bear mentioning that
Ved. (RV) surta- ‘sunny’ could continue the same Indo-European
formation, for the stem form sur- has been widely generalized in Indo-
Iranian.
gent functions) always accentuate the final syllable except when prefixed (also excepted
are compounds and the ordinals), judging by the material found in Schwyzer
(1953:501— 504), cf. also Chantraine (op.cit., p. 298 — 308).
4 This fact makes Oettinger’s interpretation (1982:242) of Skt. hemantá- ’winter’ as a
formation in *-to- to heman- ’winter’, with a semantic evolution from ‘die winterliche
(Zeit)’ to 'Winter(szeit)’, somewhat dubious, since here the suffix *-to- is accentuated.
Rather, Skt. hemantá- might be taken as a vrddhi derivation in *-ó- from a stem in
*-on-t- i.e. I.-E. *ghimont- -» *gheimontó-. Oettinger (op.cit., p. 238 ftn. 33) points out
that a formal comparison of Skt. hemantá- and Hitt. gimmant- ‘winter’ is possible only
if the former was previously athematic. For this he finds possible indices in the fact that
beside Skt. vasantá- ‘spring’ there is an adverbial vasántá ’in spring’, indicating a pre-
vious athematic flexion. Oettinger’s reason for not interpreting Skt. hemantá- as a
vrddhi derivation from the nt-stem found in Hitt. gimmant- appears to be that he as-
sumes the latter must be reconstructed as *gheimont- (which through vrddhi derivation
would yield Skt. *haimantá-). He therefore chooses (op.cit., p. 242) to keep the Indian
and the Hittite words apart and (following an original idea of Bartholomae’s) suggests
that Skt. hemantá- might be a late Indian formation to heman- ’winter’. This, in his
opinion, is confirmed by the difference in accentuation between hemantá- and the older
pre-dialectal type párvala-.
It is essential here that Hitt. gimmant- be correctly judged. Oettinger’s reconstruction
of this word as *gheimont- is based on Riemschneider’s claim (Festschrift H. Otten, p.
273—281) that the sign gi-, always used in the spelling of gimmant-, has the phonetic
value /ge-/ exclusively, whereas /gi-/ is written ki-. However, Melchert (1984:69 — 70)
has shown that Riemschneider’s claim is false and that gimmant- may represent either
*gheim- or *ghim-.
Also, Oettinger (op.cit., p. 239) stresses the paraliel word formation of the words for
‘night’ and ‘winter’ in the pattern *ksep- : *ghiem- (root nouns), *ksep-r/n- :
*gheim-r/n-, *ks(e)p-én/ón- : *gheim-ón-, *ksp-ónt- (cf. Hitt. ispant-) : *gheim-ónt-.
However, the last equation is wrong. Correct would be *ksp-ónt-: *ghim-ónt-.
That is to say, the spelling cannot deter us from deriving Hitt. gimmant- from I.-E.
*ghimont-, and the word formational pattern actually recommends such reconstruction.