Re: Summary of Athematic and a possible "Verner's Law" of Athematics

----- Original Message -----

From: Glen Gordon

To: cybalist@egroups.com

Sent: Monday, March 27, 2000 11:20 AM

Subject: [cybalist] Summary of Athematic and a possible "Verner's Law" of Athematics

    - imperfect verbs with extensions (*linkW-, *mers-, *bhind-)
    - certain Semitic verbs borrowed between 6000-5000 BCE
       (*es-, *ed-)
    - derivatives of athematic nouns (*nekWt-)
    - vowel- or diphthong-terminating verbs (*ei-, *kei-)
    - perfect verbs (*weid-, *steh-)

I've got a few questions concerning your list of athematic types, Glen.

(1) What do you mean by "imperfect"? Non-perfective verbs? But surely *likW- etc. did form perfects (*le-loikW-e etc.), well attested in various daughter languages. Verbs which were not OBLIGATORILY perfective?

(2) There are quite a few CVC athematics; *es- and *ed- are just the top of an iceberg.

(3) Is "*steh-" a perfect[ive] verb??? In what sense? It's most securely attested forms are reduplicated presents and aorists.

(4) You forgot to include a number of other typically athematic formations, e.g. reduplicated stems like *bHi-bHer-ti, or laryngeal-final stems like *wemh-ti 'vomit'.

 

Piotr