A new prosodic reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European *-mon-stems

4.2.1 AP 3 inflection is due to neuter *-men-stems? The “proterokinetic” hypothesis

One scenario in which neuter *-men-stems facilitate the development of AP 3 in the Lithuanian *-muo-class would take as its starting point Schindler’s (1975c:263–264) widely accepted (pre-)PIE reconstruction of neuter *-men-stems with PK inflection: nom/acc.sg R(é)-mṇ, gen.sg R(∅)-mén-s, dat.sg R(∅)-mén-ei, etc. It would then be necessary to assume just two developments in the prehistory of Balto-Slavic: (i) analogical leveling of root full-grade from the strong cases to weak; (ii) analogical leveling of suffixal stress from the weak cases to the strong. If Schindler’s reconstruction is correct, then the first step would have strong empirical support. There is no evidence for intraparadigmatic *é/∅-root ablaut among the members of the Lithuanian -muo-class in (12) that align etymologically with other neuter *-men-stems nor, for that matter, in any other members of this class. Likewise, deverbal neuter *-men-stems elsewhere in the IE family reflect only paradigmatic full-grade of the root;³⁹ thus, e.g., Lat. augmen ‘increase’ in (12b) (< PIE *h₂éug-men-) has a gen.sg augminis, Ved. dhā́man– ‘domain’ in (12c) (< PIE *d^héh₁-men-; cf. Av. dāman- ‘creation’) has a gen.sg dhā́manas (cf. YAv. dām̨an), Gk. ῥεῦμα ‘stream’ in (12h) (< PIE *sréu-men-) has a gen.sg ῥεύματος, etc. Taken together, these IE forms strongly suggest that deverbal neuter *-men-stems already had paradigmatic full-grade in PIE itself (cf. Wackernagel & Debrunner 1954:759).⁴⁰

The more serious problems with this scenario arise in the second step. There are two basic issues. First, if it is the case that neuter *-men-stems retained PK mobility going into Balto-Slavic, it would be a striking archaism against the other ancient IE languages, which otherwise point uniformly to fixed root stress already in PIE. In Vedic, all deverbal neuter *-men-stems exhibit fixed root stress (cf. Wackernagel & Debrunner 1954:755–759). In Greek, all deverbal neuter *-men-stems exhibit RA,⁴¹ which presupposes an earlier Vedic-like situation. The Hittite evidence is more limited, but the neuter *-men-stem ^NINDAšaraman- ‘ration bread’ clearly shows root stress in the strong cases (nom/acc.sg šarāman [sráː-man], pl šarāma [sráː-ma]) and deletion of the suffixal vowel in the weak cases (e.g., dat/loc.sg šaramni, gen.sg šaramnaš), which suggest that these forms also had root stress (i.e., [sráː-mn-i], [sráː-mn-as]). This is corroborated by an Old Script plene spelling of the root vowel dat/loc.pl sarāmaš ([sráː-m(n)-as]; KBo 20.27 rev. 10).⁴²

Thus for Balto-Slavic to have inherited neuter *-men-stems with suffixal stress requires that the apparent convergence between these other IE languages is accidental, the result of independent but parallel levelings of root stress from the strong cases to the weak in each branch. One might argue that this is a trivial (hence repeatable) innovation, but this would have awkward consequences for the second issue, the assumption that Balto-Slavic has leveled suffixal stress from the weak cases to the strong. If there were indeed certain structural factors at work in the grammar of PIE that facilitated the generalization of root stress in neuter *-men-stems in the prehistory of Indo-Iranian, Greek, and Anatolian, then it would be especially unlikely that the leveling went in the opposite direction in Balto-Slavic.

It is unlikely, then, that Balto-Slavic is an outlier in this way. The comparative data discussed above suggests instead that already in PIE neuter *-men-stems had stressed full-grade of the root in both their strong and weak cases (cf. Lundquist & Yates 2018:2110): nom/acc.sg R(é)-mṇ, gen.sg R(é)-men-(e/o)s, dat.sg R(é)-men-ei, nom/acc.pl R(é)-mōn).⁴³ If this reconstruction is correct, PIE neuter *-men-stem should simply have maintained fixed root stress (= AP 1 inflection) into (Old) Lithuanian, just like OLith. ãkmuo ‘stone’ (< *h₂ék̑mon- per 2.3 above). Consequently, neuter *-men-stems would not have contributed to the development of word stress in the Lithuanian -muo-class; rather, this class must have developed AP 3 on the basis of its other members, and erstwhile neuter *-men-stems owe their AP 3 inflection (in place of historically expected AP 1) to their eventual incorporation into this class.

4.2.2 AP 3 inflection is due to neuter *-men-stems? The “hysterokinetic” hypothesis

Jasanoff (2017:166–168) has raised the possibility of an alternative scenario in which neuter *-men-stems play a crucial role in the development of AP 3 inflection in the Lithuanian -muo-class.⁴⁴ Following Nussbaum (1986:118–123), he assumes that in PIE the nom/acc.pl (“collective”) of neuter *-men-stems could be formed in one of two ways, AK *R(é)-mōn or “hysterokinetic” (HK) *R(∅)-mḗn. In his view, the latter is continued in Slavic, where neuter *-men-stems have nom/acc.sg forms in Proto-Slavic (PSl.) -m̨e (e.g., OCS sěm̨e ‘seed’, vrěm̨e ‘time’) that cannot reflect PIE *-mṇ,⁴⁵ which would have yielded PSl. ^x-mĭ. Jasanoff argues that inherited *-mṇ was remade after PIE nom/acc.pl *-mḗn, whence PSl. *-m̨e.⁴⁶ Supposing that this change took place already in Proto-Balto-Slavic (PBS),⁴⁷ one could envision a scenario whereby the stem-final stress of the new n.nom/acc.sg in *-mḗn was leveled through the paradigm of (some) neuter *-men-stems, creating new weak case forms with stem-final stress (gen.sg *-mén-e/os, dat.sg *-mén-ei, etc.).⁴⁸

This scenario encounters morphological problems, however. The basic issue is the lack of comparative support for n.nom/acc.pl forms in *-mḗn (cf. Harðarson 1987b:94). Outside of Balto-Slavic, the only possible trace of such forms is in Indo-Iranian where, according to Jasanoff (2017:168 n. 101) and Nussbaum (apud Jasanoff 1989:138 n. 10), they are directly reflected in Avestan n.nom/acc.pl -m̨an (or -m̨am with assimilation), e.g., OAv. dām̨an ‘bonds’, hax^əm̨am ‘retinues’. Jasanoff (1989:138) argues that it is advantageous to derive these forms from *-mḗn rather than the standardly reconstructed *-mōn because, in his view, word-final *n was lost already in PIE after *ō but not after *ē (cf. n. 6 above), thus only from *-mḗn can OAv. -m̨an/–m̨am be lautgesetzlich. Yet the assumption that *-mḗn would yield -m̨an/–m̨am is problematic, since the nasal-less nom.sg of OAv. aⁱriiə̄mā ‘hospitality’ (< *-mḗn) suggests that word-final *n was also lost in this environment, likely already in Proto-Indo-Iranian (PIIr.; cf. Ved. aryamā́ ‘Aryaman’).⁴⁹ Therefore regardless of whether the starting point for OAv. -m̨an/–m̨am is *-mḗn or *-mō(n), it is necessary to assume that the word(/suffix)-final *n was analogically restored in Indo-Iranian from a paradigm cell in which it was preserved—i.e., singular weak cases with PIIr. *-man-V or gen.pl *-man-aHam.

A still more serious objection to deriving OAv. -m̨an/–m̨am from *-mḗn is prosodic. While there is no way to determine how the reflexes of neuter *-men-stems were stressed in Avestan, there is no reason to suspect that it was different from Vedic, where the cognate class shows only root stress in the nom/acc.pl—e.g., Ved. kármāṇi ‘deeds’, sádmāni ‘seats’, dā́māni ‘cords’ (cf. OAv. dām̨an above). A pre-form *-mḗn with final stress cannot account for the root stress pattern in these Vedic forms. Root stress is expected, however, if they derive from PIE *R(é)-mōn via the series of developments in (13) (cf. Harðarson 1987b:96–97):

(13) Chronological development of nom/acc.pl of PIE neuter *-men-stems into Vedic:

a. PIE *R(é)-mōn > pre-PIIr. *R(á)-mā

Phonological loss of word-final *n after *ō in PIE (per Jasanoff 1989) or after *ā in pre-PIIr.

b. pre-PIIr. *R(á)-mā >> PIIr. *R(á)-mān

Analogical restoration of suffix-final *n from elsewhere in the paradigm in PIIr.⁵⁰

c. PIIr. *R(á)-mān >> PInd. *R(á)-mānH > Ved. R(á)-māni

Recharacterization with the n.nom/acc.pl marker *-H (< PIE *-h₂) in Proto-Indic (PInd.).⁵¹

Since OAv. -m̨an/–m̨am can equally continue *-mḗn or *-mōn and Ved. -māni can only continue the latter, the most economical account of the Indo-Iranian data is that both reflect *-mōn.

The Slavic evidence for n.nom/acc.pl *-mḗn is likewise equivocal. Kim (2019b) provides a critical assessment of various accounts of the historically unexpected nom/acc.sg *-m̨e found in Slavic neuter *-men-stems, including that of Jasanoff (2017). He argues in favor of an explanation first proposed by Vondrák (1905:215) and subsequently endorsed by a number of scholars (e.g., Kortlandt 1983:176, Szemerényi 1996:170–171, Rasmussen apud Olander 2015:85): inherited nom/acc.sg *-mṇ was replaced in PBS by *-men, which was analogically leveled from the weak cases in *-men-V; PBS *-men then developed regularly into PSl. *-m̨e.⁵²

Thus neither Slavic nor Avestan provides compelling evidence for an inherited nom/acc.pl *-mḗn in neuter *-men-stems. Accordingly, I reject the reconstruction of such forms for PIE. An upshot of this conclusion is that PIE neuter *-men-stems can be reconstructed with a single exponent of nom/acc.pl, schematically *R(é)-mōn, thereby eliminating the need to explain why this category should have two n.nom/acc.pl forms without any apparent functional difference. However, it also implies that *-mḗn did not factor into the prehistory of Lithuanian neuter *-men-stems (as in the scenario outlined above), in which case it is necessary to look elsewhere for the source of AP 3 inflection in this class.

4.2.3 AP 3 inflection is due to animate *-men-stems?

A different potential source of AP 3 in the -muo-class is animate *-men-stems. It is uncontroversial that this class had suffixal stress in their strong case forms in PIE, as is the case in Greek (e.g., nom.sg ποιμήν ‘shepherd’, πυθμήν ‘bottom’, ὑμήν ‘membrane’) and Vedic (acc.sg aryamáṇam ‘Aryaman’). If the strong stem were then leveled at an early stage (resulting in, e.g., gen.sg *-mén-e/os, dat.sg *-mén-ei) as in other Balto-Slavic consonant stems,⁵³ by the standard view the Lithuanian reflexes of this class should have developed AP 3 inflection.

The main issue with attributing AP 3 inflection in the -muo-class to animate *-men-stems alone is that there is just a single clear reflex of this category in Lithuanian, piemuõ ‘shepherd boy’, which cannot on its own have constituted a sufficient basis for generalizing AP 3 in the -muõ-class at the expense of the AP 1 inflection that is historically expected for the much more numerous neuter *-men-stems (per above). There is also an issue particular to this lexical item—namely, that it is attested with AP 1 inflection in Old Lithuanian (cf. n. 37 above). However these forms are to be explained, they suggest that piemuõ adopted AP 3 inflection within the history of Lithuanian; it thus can hardly have played a role in establishing AP 3 as the regular prosodic pattern in the -muo-class.

4.2.4 AP 3 inflection is due to ID *-mon-stems

The last remaining historical input to the Lithuanian -muo-class was PIE *-mon-stems. I propose that it was mainly PIE nominals stems of this type that served as the historical basis for the generalization of AP 3 inflection in the -muo-class. If ID *-mon-stems like (12) were inherited into Balto-Slavic with the same stem-final stress pattern consistently observed in Vedic (e.g., acc.sg -mā́n-am, gen.sg -mán-as; see section 3 above), they would naturally have developed AP 3 inflection in Lithuanian. Taken together with any other animate *-men-stems (viz., besides piemuõ) that may have been inherited into Lithuanian, these ID *-mon-stems could have provided a robust enough core of nominals with AP 3 inflection that this stress pattern was extended to neuter *-men-stems when they fell together with the other *-mVn-stems into the -muo-class.

For comparison, consider what would have happened if PIE ID *-mon-stems were instead inherited into Balto-Slavic with the AK stress pattern reconstructed by EM. The outcome of such forms would in all likelihood have been the same AP 1 inflection as observed in OLith. ãkmuo (cf. 4.2.1) above). In this scenario, the emergence of AP 3 inflection in the Lithuanian -muo-class would be surprising, since nearly all of the historical inputs to this class should have developed AP 1 inflection. In contrast, the proposal outlined above offers a plausible pathway to AP 3 in the -muo-class by making ID *-mon-stems a direct source of this stress pattern.

5.1.1 Greek *-mon-stem nouns derived from primary neuter *-men-stems

Greek *-mon-stem nouns provide some direct evidence for the prosodic reconstruction of PIE ID *-mon-stems. This evidence consists of a small set of *-mon-stem nouns attested beside cognate primary neuter *-men-stems from which they may have been formed historically by ID. These derivationally related pairs are given in (14), where it can be observed that the *-mon-stems exhibit an even mixture of stress patterns: (14a–c) have RA, which descriptively yields root stress except in the gen.pl (-μόν-ων), while (14d–f) have fixed stem-final stress (gen.sg -μῶν-ος, dat.sg -μῶν-ι, etc.).⁵⁵

(14) Greek *-mon-stem nouns attested beside cognate primary neuter *-men-stem nouns:

		nom/acc.sg *[-mṇ]			nom.sg *[-mōn]
a.	Gk.	τέρμα	‘end, boundary’		τέρμων	‘boundary’
b.	Gk.	στῆμα	‘stamen; shaft of penis’		στήμων	‘warp’
c.	Gk.	γνῶμα	‘judgment’		γνώμων	‘judge, interpreter’
d.	Gk.	θῆμα	‘tomb’		θημών	‘heap’
e.	Gk.	χεῖμα	‘winter (weather)’		χειμών	‘winter (weather), storm’
f.	Gk.	κεῦθμα*	‘hiding place’		κευθμών	‘hiding place’

The implications of this evidence for IE reconstruction are not immediately clear. Since the result of RA in (14a–c) is generally root stress, it is plausible to view RA in these nouns as the regular diachronic outcome in Greek of prehistoric root stress and thus to take them as evidence for reconstructing PIE ID *-mon-stems with this pattern. On the other hand, (14d–f) point to stem-final stress as the inherited pattern.

A closer examination of these forms yields little to suggest that one stress pattern or the other is innovative. All six *-mon-stems in (14) occur in archaic or classical Greek, and both groups include nouns that are attested already in early Greek epic: στήμων in (14b) is found in Hesiod (Op. 538), while θημών in (14d), χειμών in (14e), and κευθμών in (14f) occur in Homer. Neither group shows predictable semantic relationships between base and derivative of the type that are characteristic of productive derivation. γνώμων in (14d) is related to the neuter *-men-stem γνῶμα semantically (and phonologically) in much the same way as *-mon-stem adjectives are typically related to cognate neuter *-men-stem nouns (e.g., μνῆμα ‘remembrance’: μνήμων ‘mindful’; see further 5.2 below on this pattern);⁵⁶ it is thus perhaps a substantivization of a relatively recently formed *-mon-stem adjective (see further 5.3 below). The other pairs in (14), however, may be better viewed as the residue of derivational relationships that obtained only in the prehistory of Greek. Semantically, the *-mon-stems are either (nearly) synonymous with their corresponding neuter *-men-stems, as in (14a) and (14e–f), or else have idiosyncratic meanings, as in (14b) and (14d). The relevant neuter *-men-stems are plausibly regarded as ancient and thus pose no obstacle to the hypothesis that these *-mon-stems were formed by ID at a prehistoric stage. τέρμα in (14a), θῆμα in (14d), and χεῖμα in (14e) are attested in Homer and have cognates elsewhere in IE: Lat. termen (<< *terh₂-men-), Ved. dhā́-man– (< *d^héh₁-men-), and Ved. hé-man- ‘winter’ (< *g̑^héi-men-).⁵⁷ στῆμα in (14b) is not attested until the common era (in Hesychius, among other authors), but similarly has clear IE cognates (Ved. sthā́-man– ‘station’, Lat. stāmen ‘warp’ < PIE *stéh₂-men-; NIL: 640) and so may well be inherited. Finally, the neuter *-men-stem κεῦθμα* in (14f) is not directly attested,⁵⁸ but is implied by κευθμός ‘hiding-place’ (Hom.+) if correctly derived from *keud^h-m(n)-ó- ( *kéud^h-men- + *-o- per Nussbaum 2014b:249)

In sum, neither of the two stress patterns in (14)—i.e., RA in (14a–c) or stem-final stress in (14d–f)—has an obviously stronger claim to diachronic priority. The situation is clearer, however, in Greek’s indirect reflexes of PIE *-mon-stems, which are the subject of 5.1.2.

5.1.2 Greek *-mon-stem nouns derived from verbal or nominal stems with a suffix *-mon-

Greek also has *-mon-stems that lack corresponding neuter *-men-stems. Most of these appear to be derived from attested verbal or nominal stems with an independent suffix *-mon-stem, and as such, indirectly testify to the stress patterns of PIE ID *-mon-stems (cf. 2.1 above). Greek *-mon-stem nouns formed in this way are listed in (15) along with their derivational bases.⁵⁹ That these *-mon-stem nouns are non-primary derivatives is evident from the fact that, in each case, overt stem-forming morphology contained in the base also surfaces in the derived noun.

(15) Greek nouns derived from verbal or nominal stems with a suffix *-mon-:

		base			nom.sg *[-mōn]
a.	Gk.	κήδομαι	‘care for’		κηδεμών	‘attendant’
b.	Gk.	ἡγέομαι	‘lead’		ἡγεμών	‘leader’
c.	Gk.	ἀγρέω	‘seize’		ἀγρεμών	‘hunter’
d.	Gk.	ἰχνεύω	‘track’		ἰχνεύμων	‘(type of weasel/wasp)’
e.	Gk.	ἀρτάω	‘hang’		ἀρτέμων	‘foresail’
f.	Gk.	δαιτύς	‘meal’		δαιτυμών	‘diner’
g.	Gk.	ἀκρός	‘top; end’		ἀκρεμών	‘branch’
h.	Gk.	θηλή	‘teat’		θηλαμών	‘wet nurse’

In the *-mon-stem nouns in (15) stem-final stress is the predominant pattern. It is the only stress pattern attested for denominal *-mon-stem nouns—i.e., δαιτυμών in (15f), ἀκρεμών in (15g), and θηλαμών in (15h)—all of which are attested in archaic Greek.⁶⁰ Likewise, both of the deverbal *-mon-stem nouns attested in Homer, κηδεμών in (15a) and ἡγεμών in (15b), have stem-final stress.⁶¹ On the other hand, the two deverbal *-mon-stem nouns that exhibit RA are first attested significantly later: ἰχνεύμων in (15d) occurs first in Aristotle, ἀρτέμων in (15e) in the New Testament.⁶² It is also notable that whereas the other *-mon-stem nouns in (15) function as generic agent nouns, their semantics predictable from their respective derivational bases, ἰχνεύμων and ἀρτέμων appear to have developed specialized meanings: ἰχνεύμων, originally *‘tracker’, denotes specific types of animals known for tracking their prey (cf. LSJ, s.v.); and ἀρτέμων, originally *‘hanging’ (based on the intransitive sense of the verb), denotes a specific type of sail that hangs from the mast of a ship. This fact is relevant for their stress patterns because, as discussed in 5.3 below, there is a general diachronic tendency for nominals to develop RA within the history of Greek, especially those that undergo lexicalization. Since semantic differences between base and derivative are commonly an indicator of lexicalization, there is reason to suspect that the RA patterns of ἰχνεύμων in (15d) and ἀρτέμων in (15e) are innovative, products of this diachronic tendency.

Yet however RA in these two forms is to be explained, it is evident that that stem-final stress is the better established pattern in non-primary *-mon-stem nouns, especially in the oldest layer of Greek. These nouns accordingly constitute a prima facie argument for reconstructing stem-final stress in ID *-mon-stems.

5.1.3 Other Greek *-mon-stem nouns

Not all Greek *-mon-stems fit neatly into the morphological types discussed in 5.1.1 or 5.1.2. Here I briefly discuss three such *-mon-stems that, in view of their early Greek attestation and possible IE comparanda, have a credible claim to inheritance: τελαμών ‘strap, belt’, πλαταμών ‘broad body/space’, and δαίμων ‘deity, spirit’.

The first, τελαμών ‘strap, belt’ (gen.sg -μῶν-ος like (14d–f) above), is well attested in Homer and has an exact cognate in OIr. talam ‘earth’ (< *telh₂-món-).⁶³ Schwyzer (1939:522 n. 6) suggests that it is derived from the aor.inf τελάσαι ‘endure’, which would perhaps make it an inner-Greek deverbal formation comparable to those in (15a–e) above. An unattractive aspect of this analysis, however, is that the aor.inf τελάσαι with root full-grade occurs only in Hesychius;⁶⁴ the only non-perfect stems of this verb attested in Homer—i.e., contemporaneous with the earliest occurrences of τελαμών—are (inf) τλῆναι (cf. (17a) below) and ταλάσσαι, neither of which can account for the shape of the noun’s stem. Alternatively, Yates (2020b:260–261) proposes that the ancestor of τελαμών was formed by ID from a neuter *-men-stem *télh₂-men-. If correct, τελαμών would belong with the other *-mon-stem nouns paired with primary neuter *-men-stems in (14) above, but since no assured reflexes of *télh₂-men- have (yet) been identified, this analysis remains uncertain.

The second, πλαταμών ‘broad body/space’ (gen.sg -μῶν-ος), occurs first in the Homeric Hymns (Merc. 128) and is standardly compared to Ved. prathi-mán- ‘breadth’ (NIL: 564). The Greek and Vedic forms both have stem-final stress, but show a mismatch in root vocalism: zero-grade *pḷth₂– in Greek vs. full-grade *pleth₂- in Vedic. One possibility is that the apparent zero-grade in Greek is actually a mirage, the result of regressive vowel assimilation (πλαταμών < *πλεταμών; Garnier & Sagot 2017:55 n. 63); but given that this phonological change is not regular (cf. τελαμών above), and that the Greek evidence for vowel assimilation is more generally dubious (see especially van Beek 2011), this scenario is unlikely. More plausibly, the full-grade was replaced in Greek by analogy to the *u-stem adjective πλατύς ‘broad’ (= Ved. pṛth-ú– ‘id.’ < PIE *pḷth₂-ú–; see, e.g., Frisk 1960:553–554, EWA II: 180, van Beek 2013:82, 104). However, Yates (2020b:259–260) and Kiparsky (to appear) contend instead that the Greek zero-grade is archaic—i.e., that Gk. πλαταμών directly reflects PIE *pḷth₂-món–. Morphologically, Yates further argues that *pḷth₂-món– is derived from the root *pleth₂- ‘broad’, and accordingly shows the zero-grade root proper to primary derivatives formed with the suffix *-mon- (for further discussion of this pattern see section 6 below).

Finally, δαίμων ‘deity, spirit’ is well-attested in Homer and has possible cognates in Germanic, OE tīma ‘time’ and ON tími ‘id.’, which likewise derive from the root *deh₂(y)- ‘divide’ (> Gk. δαίομαι, Ved. dáyate ‘distribute’).⁶⁵ The long *ī in Germanic requires a zero-grade root *dih₂- (< *dh₂i- via metathesis; cf. Kroonen 2013:517), whereas the Greek form appears to continue *déh₂i-mon- with stressed full-grade of the root. These forms are perhaps most easily reconciled by reconstructing a primary AK *-mon-stem—i.e., strong *déh₂i-mon- vs. weak *dh₂i-mn-′—with analogical leveling of the root zero-grade in Germanic. However, a primary *-mon-stem *dh₂i-món- parallel to *pḷth₂-món– above is also possible. On this analysis, the Germanic forms with root zero-grade are straightforwardly predicted. It is usually thought that zero-grade *dh₂i- would not yield Gk. δαι- by sound change, but since the Greek reflexes of this PIE root show only δαι-, even in zero-grade contexts (e.g., δαιτύς ‘feast’ in (15f) above, Cret. δαισις ‘division of property’), it is plausible to assume that inherited zero-grades of this root were systematically replaced by analogical full-grades in Greek, including in δαίμων.⁶⁶ As for its stress pattern, δαίμων is surely lexicalized in Greek,⁶⁷ and may show the same diachronic replacement of stem-final stress by RA that was proposed above for ἰχνεύμων and ἀρτέμων (see further 5.3 below).

Questions thus remain concerning the morphological background of τελαμών, πλαταμών, and δαίμων. What is clear, however, is (i) that these nouns are very likely to be inherited, given their early attestation in Greek and their IE cognates, and (ii) that the majority (2/3) show stem-final stress. In the latter respect, they converge with the non-primary deverbal and denominal *-mon-stem nouns in (15), bolstering the case for reconstructing stem-final stress in PIE ID *-mon-stems.

5.2.1 Greek *-mon-stem adjectives beside neuter *-men-stems

A first group of *-mon-stem adjectives are attested beside neuter *-men-stem nouns from which they could in principle be formed by ID. Examples of this type are given in (16):⁷⁰

(16) Greek *-mon-stem adjectives with corresponding neuter *-men-stem nouns:

		nom.sg *[-mṇ]			nom.sg *[-mōn]
a.	Gk.	μνῆμα	‘remembrance’		μνήμων	‘mindful’
b.	Gk.	ἧμα	‘projectile’		ἥμων	‘projectile-throwing’
c.	Gk.	αἷμα	‘blood’		αἵμων	‘bloody’
d.	Gk.	πῆμα	‘misery’		πήμων	‘baneful’
e.	Gk.	νόημα	‘thought’		νοήμων	‘thoughtful’
f.	Gk.	δήλημα	‘harm’		δηλήμων	‘harmful’
g.	Gk.	πένθημα	‘mourning’		πενθήμων	‘mournful’
h.	Gk.	μείδημα	‘smile’		μειδᾱ́μων	‘smiling’
i.	Gk.	ἄνθημα	‘blossom’		ἀνθήμων	‘blooming’
j.	Gk.	τέχνημα	‘work of art’		τεχνήμων	‘artful’
k.	Gk.	βλάστημα	‘offspring’		βλαστήμων	‘sprouting’

Of these *-mon-stem adjectives at least μνήμων in (16a) and ἥμων in (16b)—both attested in Homer—are plausibly inherited. Their corresponding neuter *-men-stem stems, μνῆμα and ἧμα, are also attested in Homer and primary derivatives of well-established PIE roots (< *mneh₂-, *h₁yeh₁-; LIV²: 225–226, 447).⁷¹ These *-mon-stem derivatives would thus bear directly on the prosodic reconstruction of PIE ID *-mon-stems. The other *-mon-stem adjectives in (16) in all likelihood provide only indirect testimony. αἷμα in (16c) and πῆμα in (16d) are attested in Homer and on structural grounds could continue neuter *-men-stems, but neither has a secure root etymology;⁷² the related *-mon-stem are thus probably inner-Greek formations. The other adjectives in (16) are manifestly created within Greek. If the derivations in (16e–k) are correct, then they are based on neuter *-men-stems which are themselves non-primary derivatives of verbal stems formed by productive Greek derivational processes: in (16e) νόημα νοέω ‘think’; in (16f) δήλημα δηλέομαι ‘hurt’; and in (16g) πένθημα πενθέω ‘mourn’; in (16h) μείδημα μειδάω ‘smile’; in (16i) ἀνθήμα ἀνθέω ‘bloom’; in (16j) τέχνημα τεχνάομαι ‘make by art/skill’; and in (16k) βλάστημα βλαστέω ‘sprout’.⁷³ Since it is generally thought that neuter *-men- was only a primary suffix in PIE (as is still the case in Vedic Sanskrit), these neuter *-men-stems must have been produced within Greek, and so in turn, their *-mon-stem derivatives.⁷⁴

It is uncertain, however, whether the *-mon-stems in (16) are really related to their corresponding neuter *-men-stems in the way represented in these derivations. A well-known distributional property of *-mon-stem adjectives is that BV compounds are much more common by type than non-compounds, and as a consequence, there are numerous *-mon-stem adjectives that occur only as the 2M of BV compounds, where they function as the compositional form of neuter *-men-stems (cf. 2.2 above). Thus, e.g., beside the neuter *-men-stems κτῆμα ‘possession’ and εἷμα ‘garment’ (both Hom.+) occur the adjectives πολυ-κτήμων ‘having many possessions’ and κακο-είμων ‘ill-clad’ (both Hom.+), but the non-compounds ^xκτήμων and ^xεἵμων are unattested. Moreover, for *-mon-stem adjectives that occur both as the 2M of BV compounds and independently, it is often the case that the compound is attested earlier (in some cases, significantly) than the non-compound.⁷⁵ Thus, e.g., ἀν-αίμων ‘bloodless’ and ἀ-πήμων ‘lacking misery’ occur in Homer, but the non-compound αἵμων in (16c) does not appear until the 5th c. BCE, and πήμων in (16d) is a late Orphic hapax. These facts lead Risch (1974:52–53) to conclude that (at least some) Greek non-compound *-mon-stem adjectives of the type in (16) are not formed directly from their corresponding *-men-stems by ID, but are rather back-formed within Greek from compounds in which they occur as the 2M (cf. Sandell 2015:201–202). The possible implications of this analysis for the prosody of these adjectives are discussed further in 5.3 below.

5.2.2 Greek deverbal and denominal *-mon-stem adjectives formed with a suffix *-mon-

Also found in Greek are *-mon-stem adjectives without corresponding neuter *-men-stems. Two of these, ἴδμων ‘knowing’ and τλήμων ‘enduring’, could be primary formations, historically derived from the roots *weid- ‘know’ and *telh₂- ‘endure’ respectively (LIV²: 622–623, 665–667).⁷⁶ The former is not directly attested until the 6th c. CE (Leont.; Anth. Pal. 7.575), but is perhaps implied by ἰδμοσύνη ‘knowledge’, which occurs already in Hesiod (Theog. 377). A unique feature of ἴδμων among *-mon-stem adjectives is that it has a possible cognate—namely, Ved. vidmán- ‘knowledge’ (cf. DELG: 779).⁷⁷ A pre-form *wid-món- with the same root zero-grade and suffixal stress proposed for πλαταμών in 5.1 above would account for both Ved. vidmán- and Gk. ἴδμων, provided only that root stress in the latter is an innovation in Greek, as argued in 5.3 below. Other morphological analyses have obvious drawbacks. For instance, derivation within Greek from the perfect stem could account for the root-zero grade of ἴδμων (cf. Hom. pfc.inf ἴδμεν(αι)), but the use of the perfect stem as a base for the formation of *-mon-stems in Greek is otherwise unparalleled.

The other candidate for a primary derivative, τλήμων ‘enduring’ (Hom.+), contains a zero-grade of the root *telh₂- (i.e., tḷh₂–).⁷⁸ τλήμων could thus continue a pre-form *tḷh₂-món– exactly parallel to *wid-món-, again provided that its root stress is innovative (cf. Yates 2020b:261 n. 30). In this case, though, there may be independent evidence for this assumption: a pre-form *tḷ́h₂-mon– would have yielded ^xταλάμων via the “palma-Rule” (see, e.g., Weiss 2020:119).⁷⁹ Yet while this analysis is attractive, it is not the only option. Another possibility is that τλήμων was built within Greek from the verb’s aorist stem, (inf τλῆναι), which is based on the generalized zero-grade of the root *telh₂- (cf. LIV²: 622 n. 2). Given the existence of deverbal *-mon-stem adjectives like δαήμων, which must be formed from an overtly derived aorist stem (inf δαῆναι), it is arguably more economical to assume that τλήμων is formed in the same way.

On this view, τλήμων and δαήμων would pattern with the Greek *-mon-stems adjectives in (17), which likewise lack corresponding neuter *-men-stems, but can be analyzed as non-primary derivatives of verbal or nominal stems formed with a suffix *-mon-:⁸⁰

(17) Greek adjectives derived from verbal or nominal stems with a suffix *-mon-:

		base			nom.sg *[-mōn]
a.	Gk.	τλῆναι	‘endure’		τλήμων	‘enduring’
b.	Gk.	δαῆναι	‘learn’		δαήμων	‘experienced’
c.	Gk.	αἰδέομαι	‘be ashamed’		αἰδήμων	‘modest’
d.	Gk.	ἐλεέω	‘show mercy’		ἐλεήμων	‘merciful’
e.	Gk.	ἀλάομαι	‘wander’		ἀλήμων	‘wandering; inconstant’
f.	Gk.	μάχη	‘battle’		μαχήμων	‘warlike’
g.	Gk.	παιγνίη	‘play, game’		παιγνιήμων	‘playful’

With the exception of τλήμων in (17a), the examples in (17) are unambiguous non-primary formations, the stem-forming morphology of the verbal or nominal base present in the derived *-mon-stem adjective.⁸¹ The majority of the *-mon-stems adjectives in (17) are attested in Homer,⁸² thereby establishing the derivational process by which they were formed for the earliest layer of Greek.

5.2.3 Greek deverbal and denominal *-mon-stem adjectives formed with a suffix -ημον-

Finally, Greek has a number of *-mon-stems adjectives that appear to be derived from simple thematic verbs or nouns but unexpectedly show a presuffixal long vowel (nom.sg -ήμων), e.g., (18).⁸³ Stratton (1899:128) suggests that these are formed with a complex suffix -ημον- (cf. Schwyzer 1939:522), which was probably resegmented from *-mon-stem adjectives like those in (16a–b), (16e–k), and (17) above, where the long vowel is part of the base.⁸⁴

(18) Greek adjectives derived from verbal or nominal stems with a suffix -ημον-:

		base			nom.sg *[-mōn]
a.	Gk.	ἀλιτεῖν	‘sin, transgress’		ἀλιτήμων	‘wicked’
b.	Gk.	δείδω	‘fear’		δειδήμων	‘fearful’
c.	Gk.	ζῆλος	‘jealousy’		ζηλήμων	‘jealous’
d.	Gk.	ἔθω	‘be accustomed’		ἐθήμων	‘accustomed’
e.	Gk.	(ἐ)θέλω	‘want, wish’		θελήμων	‘voluntary’
f.	Gk.	ψεύδω	‘lie’		ψευδήμων	‘lying, false’

At least three *-mon-stem adjectives derived in this way occur in Homer: ἀλιτήμων in (18a), δειδήμων in (18b), and ζηλήμων in (18c). The others are not attested until much later: θελήμων in (18f) occurs first in Apollonius of Rhodes (Argon. 2.557), while ἐθήμων in (18e) and ψευδήμων in (18g) do not occur until well into the common era.

Significantly, the examples in (18) raise the possibility of an alternative analysis of many of the adjectives discussed above—namely, that they are formed with the same non-primary suffix -ημον- (cf. Chantraine 1933:173). In fact, of all the examples above only αἵμων in (16c) and πήμων in (16d) are not amenable to such an analysis—the former because the stem does not terminate in -ημον-, and the latter because there is no independent base (^xπ(η)-) to which -ημον- could be suffixed. The other *-mon-stem adjectives in (17) could be derived with the suffix -ημον- directly from the verbal stems that serve as the base for their corresponding neuter *-men-stem stems rather than from these neuters, in effect skipping the original intermediate derivational step (viz., ID)—e.g., in (16f) δηλήμων ‘harmful’ δηλέομαι ‘hurt’.⁸⁵ For the *-mon-stem adjectives in (17) the bases would remain the same, only the segmentation would differ.

This type of analysis cannot of course reflect the original situation: as noted above, there must have been an original core of *-mon-stem nominals formed by ID or by suffixation of *-mon- from which -ημον- arose by reanalysis. Yet the existence of -ημον- already in Homeric Greek makes it uncertain which of the *-mon-stem adjectives in (16a–b), (16e–k), or (17) belong to the original core or are novel forms created with this reanalyzed suffix. Indeed, the available evidence is compatible with the hypothesis that the only strategy for forming *-mon-stem adjectives that was productive within the historical period of Greek was by suffixing -ημον- to nominal or verbal stems.⁸⁶ A virtue of this hypothesis is that it predicts the virtual absence in Greek of *-mon-stem adjectives with stems that do not terminate in -ημον-. Thus, for instance, the verbal stem-forming suffix -εύω becomes productive in Greek (e.g., ἱππεύς ‘horseman’ ἱππεύω ‘be a horseman’, δοῦλος ‘slave’ δουλεύω ‘be a slave’), and from such stems are productively formed neuter *-men-stems (e.g., ἵππευμα ‘journey on horseback’, δούλευμα ‘service’).⁸⁷ There is, however, not a single *-mon-stem adjective in ^x–εύμων (e.g., ^xἱππεύμων ‘skilled at horse-riding’, ^xδουλεύμων ‘servile’), although such adjectives could in principle be derived by ID from the corresponding neuter *-men-stems or directly from the verbs with a “simple” suffix -μον-.⁸⁸ This gap would be surprising if either of these derivational processes were productive, but is wholly expected if -ημον- were the only means for producing new *-mon-stem adjectives in Greek.

It is not crucial for present purposes whether the strong form of this hypothesis is correct. What is clear from the discussion above is that the majority of Greek *-mon-stem adjectives are created within Greek or its shallow prehistory, and that many of these can be attributed to one of two innovative morphological processes: (i) back-formation from compounds; or (ii) suffixation of -ημον- to a nominal or verbal stem. In the next section (5.3), I argue that there is a connection between these morphological facts and the RA pattern consistently observed in Greek *-mon-stem adjectives.

5.3.1 Explaining word stress in Greek *-mon-stems: the “amphikinetic” hypothesis

The first possibility is that *-mon-stem nominals were inherited into Greek with AK stress mobility (as in (2b) above), then generalized root(/initial) stress at an early prehistoric stage. On this scenario, the more frequent RA pattern would be explained straightforwardly: in *-mon-stems formed by ID from primary neuter *-men-stems, root stress and RA are formally equivalent except in the gen.pl (cf. 5.1.1 above). After the emergence of the right edge stress window in Proto-Greek (“Law of Limitation;” see Probert 2012; Gunkel 2014b), the transition from root stress to RA would be essentially trivial. What requires a special explanation on this account are the cases of stem-final stress in Greek *-mon-stem nouns, which were argued in 5.1 to support the reconstruction of this pattern for PIE ID *-mon-stem. One such explanation is offered by Buck & Petersen (1945:216), who observe that stem-final stress is especially well-represented in Greek *-mon-stem agent nouns, which include (nearly) all of the forms in (15) and, from a historical perspective, likely also τελαμών ‘strap’ (< *‘upholder’); they accordingly suggest that these “owe their accentuation … to the influence of other oxytone agent nouns, in -τήρ, -ός, etc.”

This proposal encounters at least two problems, however. One is that Greek agent nouns do not uniformly exhibit stem-final stress—for instance, the numerous agent nouns formed with the suffix -τορ- consistently show RA (e.g., δώτωρ ‘giver’, γενέτωρ ‘begetter’). Since the -τορ-stems are approximately as common as the -τηρ-stems and more phonologically similar to the *-mon-stem stems, there is no clear motivation for the *-mon-stem agent nouns to have their stress patterns remodeled after those in -τηρ-. A second issue is that it fails to explain why stem-final stress is also found in some *-mon-stem nouns with non-agentive semantics—i.e., θημών ‘heap’ in (14a), χειμών ‘winter, storm’ in (14b), κευθμών ‘hiding place’ in (14c), and πλαταμών ‘broad body/space’.

5.3.2 Explaining word stress in Greek *-mon-stems: the modified “amphikinetic” hypothesis

A second possibility is that Greek inherited *-mon-stems with nom.sg * ′–mōn but acc.sg *-món-ṃ and nom.pl *-món-es due to the operation of the so-called “*k^wetwóres-Regel” over an erstwhile AK paradigm (Rix 1985; cf. Klingenschmitt 1994:389–390 n. 131). The resulting stress alternation was then variously leveled: some Greek *-mon-stems generalized the root stress of the nom/acc.sg, others the stem-final stress of the acc.sg and nom.pl.

This approach—recently endorsed, e.g., by Neri (2017:112 n. 114)—is difficult to falsify: if one starts from a primary nominal paradigm that has a combination of root, suffix, and ending stress, then one can in principle explain any attested stress pattern by paradigm leveling. Yet positing such analogical leveling is by no means cost-free, and in this case, it is necessary to explain why the root-suffix-ending stress alternation, which should have arisen in every AK paradigm via the “*k^wetwóres-Regel,” was eliminated in every one of these paradigms in every single daughter language. Even the two Vedic nominal paradigms that uniquely retain AK-type edge-to-edge stress mobility exhibit only root stress in their strong cases (acc.sg púmāṃs-am ‘man’; nom.pl pánthās ‘paths’), never the peninitial stress expected on this hypothesis (^xpumā́ṃs-am < *-ós-ṃ, ^xpanthā́s < *-óh₂-es). More generally, too, there are good reasons to be skeptical of the “*k^wetwóres-Regel.” Rasmussen (2001) has criticized the putative evidence for this rule and argued that it should be abandoned.⁸⁹ To the empirical problems raised by Rasmussen can be added a theoretical consideration—namely, that no plausible phonetic motivation for the change has ever been proposed (cf. Yates 2019b:217 n. 23).

Yet even if these issues were left aside and the “*k^wetwóres-Regel” were accepted as a PIE-level sound change, there are certain facts about Greek *-mon-stems that it does not neatly account for. The most problematic set of nominals once again includes θημών ‘heap’ in (14a), χειμών ‘winter, storm’ in (14b), and κευθμών ‘hiding place’ in (14c). On this approach, their stem-final stress pattern must be analogically generalized from the acc.sg and the nom.pl. However, these nominals show suffixal long vowels throughout their inflectional paradigm (acc.sg -μῶν-α, gen.sg -μῶν-ος, dat.sg -μῶν-ι, nom.pl -μῶν-ες, etc.), which must be leveled from the nom.sg. The observed distribution of stress and vowel length in these forms can thus be obtained only by the assumption of bidirectional paradigm leveling, which is cross-linguistically rare (see Garrett 2011 for a critique of this mechanism).

5.3.3 A new historical account of word stress in Greek *-mon-stems

The third possibility is that *-mon-stem nominals were inherited into Greek with stem-final stress (at least in their strong case forms, as in (2b) above). On this scenario, stem-final stress in the non-agentive *-mon-stem nouns noted above is instead a conservative feature, a direct reflex of PIE ID *-mon-stems with stem-final stress in (14a–c), and an indirect reflex of the same in πλαταμών. Likewise, the non-primary agent nouns (15) formed with a suffix *-mon- have stem-final stress because they arose by a reanalysis of ID *-mon-stems with stem-final stress, which may have taken place either in PIE or in the subsequent prehistory of Greek.

If this account of the diachrony is correct, then it is the RA pattern observed in a smaller set of Greek *-mon-stem nouns and consistently in the more numerous Greek *-mon-stem adjectives that remains to be explained.⁹⁰ For the latter, I propose that a three step change has occurred. In the first step, new *-mon-stem adjectives were abstracted from existing BV compounds. Per Risch (1974:52–53) a likely example of a *-mon-stem adjective created at this prehistoric stage is νοήμων ‘thoughtful’ in (16e) (Hom.+), back-formed from ἀ-νοήμων ‘thoughtless’ (Hom.+), which has the neuter *-men-stem νόημα (Hom.+) as its 2M. These BV compounds have RA, which is the historically expected outcome of regular 1M stress in this PIE compound type (cf. 2.2 above). I suggest that these new *-mon-stem adjectives received RA just like the compounds from which they were abstracted in accordance with the broader generalization in (19). Evidence for this hypothesis comes from the pattern observed in Greek non-compound *-es-stem adjectives. Building on Parmentier (1889:131) and others, Meissner (2005:206–210) has demonstrated that these are frequently back-formed from *-es-stem compound adjectives, which are hugely productive in Greek and regularly exhibit stem-final stress.⁹¹ The non-compound adjectives abstracted from these compounds show the same stem-final stress pattern—e.g., ψευδής ‘lying’ (Hes.+) from ἀ-ψευδής ‘without falsehood’ (Hes.+), σθενής ‘strong’ (Hesych.) from ἐρισθενής ‘very strong’ (Hom.+). Supposing that back-formation from compound *-mon-stem adjectives works in exactly the same, the resulting non-compound *-mon-stem should exhibit RA.

(19) Greek non-compound adjectives back-formed from compounds exhibit the same stress pattern as the compound:

a. BV compound *-mon-stem adjective (RA) >> *-mon-stem adjective (RA)

b. BV compound *-es-stem adjective (stem-final stress) >> *-es-stem adjective (stem-final stress)

In the next step, the suffix -ημων- was extracted from νοήμων and other adjectives similarly back-formed from compounds, then extended productively into deverbal and denominal derivation. Adjectives formed with this newly created suffix were characterized by the same RA pattern as the adjectives from which they were extracted.⁹² Adjectives with RA like ἀλιτήμων ‘wicked’ in (18a), δειδήμων ‘fearful’ in (18b), and ζηλήμων ‘jealous’ in (18c), which must contain -ημων- and are attested in Homer, were probably formed at this (still prehistoric) stage. The same likely holds for at least some of the other adjectives with stem-final -ημον- attested in Homer—i.e., δηλήμων ‘harmful’ in (18f), τλήμων ‘enduring’ in (17a), δαήμων ‘experienced’ in (17b), ἐλεήμων ‘merciful’ in (17d), ἀλήμων ‘wandering’ in (17e), and μαχήμων ‘warlike’ in (17f)—although these admit alternative analyses (cf. 5.2 above).

At this point, Greek still had some *-mon-stem adjectives with stem-final stress—on the one hand, the reflexes of PIE ID *-mon-stems, which likely include μνήμων ‘mindful’ in (16a) and ἥμων ‘projectile-throwing’ in (16b) (cf. n. 75 above); and on the other, any adjectives originally formed with the “simple” suffix *-mon-, which may include ἴδμων ‘knowing’ and some of the adjectives terminating in -ημον- noted just above (τλήμων, etc.). The third and final step was a consequence of the productivity of -ημων-: *-mon-stem adjectives formed with this novel suffix, which uniformly had RA, came to be much more common than those with suffixal stress. This distribution—perhaps taken together with the general preference for RA in Greek (discussed below)—led to the generalization of RA in this category: the remaining *-mon-stem with inherited stem-final stress acquired RA after the predominant type in -ήμων, e.g., *mneh₂-mṓn >> Gk. μνήμων, *wid-mṓn >> Gk. ἴδμων (cf. Ved. vid-mán-).

The remaining forms to be addressed, then, are the *-mon-stem nouns with RA: τέρμων ‘boundary’ in (14a), στήμων ‘warp’ in (14b), γνώμων ‘judge, interpreter’ in (14c), ἰχνεύμων ‘(type of weasel/wasp)’ in (15d), ἀρτέμων ‘foresail’ in (15e), and δαίμων ‘deity, spirit’. As suggested already in 5.1 above, γνώμων may be a recently substantivized adjective; as such, it could have RA because it was back-formed from a compound (e.g., ἀ-γνώμων ‘lacking judgment’), or simply due to the generalization of RA in *-mon-stem adjectives (i.e., step three above).⁹³ The other two *-mon-stem attested beside primary neuter *-men-stems, τέρμων ‘boundary’ in (14a) and στήμων ‘warp’ in (14b), require a different explanation. One possibility is raised by Nussbaum (2014b:254–255), who proposes that some apparent ID *-mon-stems, including explicitly τέρμων, actually have a different historical source—more specifically, that they reflect reanalyzed neuters, which originally had root stress.⁹⁴ If this analysis is correct, then essentially no change has occurred in these nouns, since root stress would develop naturally into RA after the development of the “Law of Limitation” in Greek (per above).

Yet if instead τέρμων and στήμων do in fact continue inherited ID *-mon-stems, another explanation for their RA pattern is available. Probert (2006a,b) has provided robust empirical evidence showing that (i) inherited non-RA stress patterns tend to be replaced by RA over time in Greek, and that (ii) lexicalized (i.e., synchronically non-derived) words are particularly likely to undergo this prosodic change.⁹⁵ Probert attributes this recurring pattern of prosodic change to the status of RA as the “default” (i.e., phonologically preferred) stress pattern in Greek.⁹⁶ Viewed in this way, the Greek pattern of change finds close parallels in other IE languages: the diachronic tendency for lexical items with non-default stress to adopt the language’s default stress pattern has now been documented in the history of Sanskrit (Lundquist 2015, Sandell 2016, Yates 2019b:215–216), Anatolian (Yates 2015), and English (Kiparsky 2015a:82–83).

It was suggested already in 5.1 that δαίμων, ἰχνεύμων, and ἀρτέμων have undergone this change; the same may hold too for τέρμων and στήμων, which likewise fit the profile of lexical items that adopt default stress. I assume that any synchronic derivational relationship between them and their corresponding neuter *-men-stems, τέρμα ‘boundary, end’ and στῆμα ‘stamen; shaft of the penis’, was lost at an early, likely prehistoric stage of Greek. This assumption is supported by the fact that these neuter *-men-stems do not contribute in a predictable way to the semantics of the *-mon-stems (cf. 5.1 above); thus τέρμα and τέρμων are essentially synonymous, while στῆμα and στήμων refer to very different things. There is also reason to doubt that the inherited process whereby *-mon-stems were formed by ID from neuter *-men-stems remained productive for long in Greek. There are at most seven *-mon-stem nouns in Greek that, from a historical perspective, are plausibly attributed to this process: the six examples in (14) plus τελαμών ‘strap’. If it is the case, as seems likely, that the *-mon-stem adjectives in (16c–e) are formed not by ID but rather by back-formation from compounds or with a suffix -ημον-, then just two adjectival reflexes of ID remain, μνήμων ‘mindful’ in (16a) and ἥμων ‘projectile-throwing’ in (16b). Given how few Greek *-mon-stem can be accounted for by ID, and that many of these diverge semantically from their corresponding neuter *-men-stems, it is reasonable to assume that that these *-mon-stem became lexicalized (“demorphologized” in terms of Probert 2006a,b) early in the (pre)history of Greek. This morphological change would in turn have made them susceptible to developing the default RA pattern in Greek.

I therefore contend that is easier to account for the mixed prosodic behavior of *-mon-stems in Greek starting from an inherited situation in which this stem class uniformly had stem-final stress (in the strong cases) than one in which it had root stress. This claim may seem counter-intuitive, since *-mon-stems with stem-final stress are considerably less common by type than those with RA. However, much of the apparent synchronic robustness of RA is likely to be a recent historical development, owing above all to the inner-Greek productivity of the innovative suffix -ημον-, which forms non-primary deverbal and denominal adjectives with RA. Also at work in effecting this distribution is the general phonological preference for RA in Greek, which is in all likelihood responsible for the diachronic replacement of stem-final stress by RA in some *-mon-stem nouns.

A consequence of this analysis is that the complicated Greek evidence for word stress in *-mon-stems aligns historically with what is directly observable in Vedic (section 3), as well as with what was argued above to be the best starting point for explaining the prosodic properties of the Lithuanian -muo-class (section 4). I return to the implications of this agreement in section 7 after treating the Anatolian evidence for *-mon-stems in section 6 below.