Could you check this over

Could you look over the entry I made at *stéh₂mn̥ and tell me whether it looks correct and whether some entries should be moved to a *stéh₂mōn entry? Thanks for the help!

It looks ok. Neuters often don't have plurals, instead they have collective nouns which inflect like singulars. *stéh₂mōn is really just the plural, although it's actually *stéh₂mō (-n is lost after ō via w:Szemerényi's law).

Drat, I totally knew that! Also, for the *-mn̥ entry. It seems to me that *-h₂ with and abstract t-stem may also form the collective noun as in -mentum and -μᾰ (-ma). Am I way off base on this one?

I don't actually know, but it does seem at least somewhat plausible that those two suffixes are related. Of course there's still the question of why the nominative has -ma and not -maton, and why the Latin suffix has a thematic stem while the Greek suffix is athematic (the Greek presumably reflects earlier -mn̥t-, the Latin reflects -mn̥to-m).

In both cases I believe it was reanalysis.

• For -mentum, there are examples like armentum, whose earlier form (armenta) is 1st declension. This would then have been reanalyzed as the neuter plural.
• Similarly, I suspect the that -μᾰ was suppletive (*-mn̥, *-mn̥th₂) and the t-stem crept back into all the singular forms except the nominative singular.

This may just be idle rambling from having looked at these too long, but it seems plausible to me.

For me, the simplest explanation for the Greek form is just as an athematic -mn̥t-. Greek regularly loses final -t, so in the nominative the result would be -mn̥t > -mat > -ma or -mn̥t > -mn̥ > -ma (both orders are possible and give the same result). In the other forms, the -t- was not final, so it was retained. I see no reason to involve suppletion, unless I am missing something.

No, you've probably not missed anything. I'm probably overthinking this. I definitely have seen the theory that -menta > -mentum; though, now I cannot seem to find it now. Would you say, however, that it is fair to categorize -mentum and -μᾰ as abstract t-stem derivatives of *-mn̥?

I suppose so, although I don't know what abstract t-stems are, exactly.

Search for "t-stem" it on this page. They would also give forms such as:

• *-tuHts: Latin -tus, Celtic *-tūts, Gothic -𐌳𐌿𐌸𐍃 (-duþs).
• *-teh₂ts: Latin -tās, Greek -της (-tēs) and Sanskrit -ताति (-tāti).

I know I just asked you to check out something, but I was working on *wéytis, and there seems to be a great disagreement about whether the underlying root should be *wey-, *weh₁i-, or *weyh₁-. I was wondering whether you could shed any light on this? It appears to be a very productive root, and so I find it hard to believe there isn't a consensus on this.

I suspect that Old Irish féith must reflect Proto-Celtic *wēitis, as a short -ei- would be reflected as é, later ía in Old Irish. So this would then have to come from *weh₁i-. On the other hand, the -th- is palatalised, which is indicated by the preceding -i- in the spelling, and it's possible that palatalisation inhibits the é > ía change. You would have to ask someone more knowledgeable like User:Angr about it.

Germanic *wiþiz can't reflect *weyh₁-, as this can't result in a short -i- in zero grade: *wih₁- would give a long ī. I'm less certain about the outcome of a zero-grade *wh₁i-, as presumably this would turn the preceding semivowel into a full vowel: *wh₁i- > *uh₁i- > *ūi-. On the other hand, it's also possible that it remained as a semivowel, in which case the expected result would be *wh₁i- > *wi-, with the laryngeal simply lost.

Lithuanian výtis has an acute accent, which must reflect either a former laryngeal or the "new long grade" of Balto-Slavic. It can't reflect *wey-, as a Lithuanian y always reflects an "old" long vowel, generally from a laryngeal. A full grade -ey- gives -ei- or -ie- in Lithuanian. This also means that it probably can't reflect *weh₁i-, which would not account for the length, although I have no idea what -eh₁i- gives in Lithuanian. Balto-Slavic developed a new type of long grade ablaut though, which could have been introduced in a zero grade form: *wh₁i- > *wi- > *wī-.

Latin ī must reflect -eyh₁-, -ih₁- or -ey-, so that rules out *weh₁i- and its zero grade *wh₁i-. The former would give *vē- if I'm not mistaken.

So while some possibilities can be ruled out, I can't say anything conclusive. It would be a good idea to take this to the ES.

Very well. May I quote you when I make the post (as I have no idea how to link here)? Also, with this information and given that De Vaan (for some strange reason) has *wh₁itis, could we maybe maybe posit *wéh₁ytis and propose that some of the forms came from the oblique form? This would give:

• *wéh₁ytis:

  féith (*wēitis)

• *wh₁itéy-:

  *wiþiz

  výtis

  vītis

I'd also like to add the wrinkle that, if we assume that वेमन् (veman, “loom, slay”) and vīmen stem from the same form, this points towards *wéymn̥.
PS: Is there a particular Vedic dictionary that gives word accentuation or can you construct it from rules in Panini?

I don't know much about Sanskrit so I can't help you there.

I don't find *wh₁itéy- very convincing as the origin of the Balto-Slavic forms, personally. The long vowel can be explained, in general, as either from a following laryngeal or from the new length ablaut. However, such new long vowels were always used in specific derivational processes that were innovated within Balto-Slavic, and I find it very unlikely that an old formation like a ti-stem would have such a long vowel. What also needs to be considered is that ti-stems became productive as infinitives in Balto-Slavic, so if one of them happened to survive as a noun, it must be an archaism and thus can't be an innovated derivation at the same time.

Hi. I'm pretty sure that *weh₁i- would become *wei- in Celtic, not #wēi-. Beekes makes the exact same point about the sequence *-eh₂i- turning (generally) into *-ai- not #-āi-; *-āi- must reflect *-eh₂ei- or similar.

Ok, but ei generally becomes ē in Celtic, so does a former eh₁i also become ē or does it remain separate?

Also, the shortening of long diphthongs is because of w:Osthoff's law.

Presumably eh₁i becomes ē just like ei. Loss of laryngeals between vowels occurred early in most (all?) daughters, followed (usually) by early vowel contraction.