Re: [tied] Vrddhi in sigmatic aorist

On Tue, 30 Oct 2001 14:26:19 -0000, "Sergejus Tarasovas"
<S.Tarasovas@...> wrote:

>--- In cybalist@..., "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> wrote:
>
>> I can't offer a well-founded opinion on it. If you want me to
>speculate -- maybe some kind of "e-infix" in the present tense
>compensating for the immobility of stress in this type of aorist. At
>any rate, I wouldn't accept any solution that doesn't explain the
>athematic "Narten presents" at the same time (the *té:k^s-ti : *ték^s-
>enti type), and if it explained vowel alternations in Hittite
>conjugations as well I'd know it to be _the_ solution.
>
>At first glance, we again have a closed (stressed) syllable in
>*té:k^s-ti and open in *ték^s-enti (if *k^s- is not prohibited in
>anlaut by PIE phonotactics, at least I suppose the *k^ 's sonority
>was less than that of *s). Of course one can point to lots of
>instances with unlenghthened stressed closed syllable, but probably
>this is at least one of the factors?

Actually, most of the verbs that in Vedic have vr.ddhi instead of
gun.a in the strong active forms, and gun.a instead of zero-grade in
the middle forms, do not end in -Cs. For some reason, most of them
end in -w (ks.nu, yu, nu, stu; ru, su, sku, snu).