Linguistic typology and the reconstruction of the Indo-European accusative plural

Abstract

In light of the fact that the traditional reconstruction of the Indo-European non-thematic accusative plural suffix *-ns, as the combination of the accusative desinence *-m and the plural ending *-s, violates a linguistic universal which stipulates: «If morphemes of both number and case are present and both follow or both precede the noun base, then the exponent of number almost always comes between the noun base and the exponent of case» (The Universals Archive of the Association for Linguistic Typology), this article explores a possible etymology of the suffix which is consonant with that universal. Specifically, a proposal based on what Adrados 1992 calls «the new image of Indo-European» is developed in which both elements of the suffix are construed as original deictic particles.1