Reconstruction talk:Proto-Indo-European/-sneh₂

@Barytonesis, Erutuon, Angr: Based on some of the examples I added to the derived terms, it seems a -νη (-nē) suffix was at least semi-production in Ancient Greek. What do you think? --Victar (talk) 21:50, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Well, that conclusion seems unlikely to me. In all of the current examples, there is an aspirated χ (kh) deriving from the cluster *ḱs. Presumably the *s changed to *h and then was fused with the *k (< *ḱ), changing its voice-onset time. That suggests to me that the suffix was added long before the Ancient Greek era, perhaps during Proto-Greek or a little earlier, before *s changed to *h or while it was being changed. If the suffix remained productive, it could hypothetically do so if it remained as *-hnē, with a h-cluster or a voiceless sonorant, which remained for some time after Proto-Greek, and, when it was added to a root ending in a stop, made that stop aspirated. That's sort of plausible, but voiceless sonorants as phonemes had vanished in Attic before the Classical period. (/r/ still had allophonic voicelessness at the beginning of a word.)

I also doubt it is really productive because I can't discern a clear connection in meaning between the various terms listed on the page, or between them and a verb. The meaning has been eroded by subsequent changes, suggesting the words were formed quite a while before the Ancient Greek period. Sort of an impressionistic argument, though.

I also can't recall any new words formed with it, unlike, say, -μᾰ (-ma), which seems to have a similar meaning to the one reconstructed for this suffix. — Eru·tuon 05:05, 28 July 2017 (UTC)