[tied] Re: Eggs from birds and swift horses (was: the palatal sham)

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:

> The lengthening of the root vowel in the s-aorist suggests to me

that the

> original shape was *deyk^s > *de:yk^s, with length due to normal
> "Szemerényi lengthening", as in the nom.sg.. If the origin was

really

> *swe, then it had already been reduced to *-s(w) by the time the
> lengthening set in.

Yes, I think it's pretty obvious that the lengthening seen in the
sigmatic aorist stem and in the animate nominative are connected
with the only other thing they have in common, i.e. the /s/.

Now, if the reflexive morpheme changes *H2ewg- to *H2weg-s-, then
*de:yk^-s- apparently contains a different morpheme (which has also
become *-s, but without causing metathesis). We do not see the
nominative marker causing metathesis, so this looks right. I do not
think the verbal desinences contained the w-element of the personal
pronouns. If you write it into the original forms, you have to
construe a whole arsenal of additional rules to get it out.

> At the risk of repeating myself, I prefer to explain the *-s as a

third

> person ending, derived either from [the nominative **su of] *s(w)e

(which

> was a 3rd. person pronoun before it became a reflexive) or the
> demonstrative *so.

If the point is that it makes sense as a reflexive, it specifically
does *not* have nominative function.

> The original aorist paradigm would have been:
>
> *déik^-m *dik^-més
> *dé(:)ik^-s *dik^-té
> *dé(:)ik^-s *dik^-é(:)r-s
>
> This was regularized to the root aorist:
>
> *déik^-m *dik^-més/-mé(n)
> *déik^-s *dik^-té(r)
> *déik^-t *dik^-é(:)r-s
>
> But, based on the 2/3 person sg., it also gave rise to the s-

aorist:

>
> *dé:ik^s-m *dé:ik^s-me(s)
> *dé:ik^s-s *dé:ik^s-te
> *dé:ik^s-t *dé:ik^s-(e:)r
>
> The 3rd. person preterite ending *-s occurs in Hittite and

Tocharian (which

> don't have an s-aorist), as well as more generally in 3pl. *-e:r <

*-er-s,

> with Osco-Umbrian variant *-ent-s. For a similar development

(3sg. ending

> -> preterite ending), cf. the Old Irish t-preterite.

Tocharian has many verbal stems that can only have arisen in the
sigmatic aorist. And Hittite at least has some. The sigmatic aorist
is not an outgrowth of the root aorist, but the regular aorist of
verbs forming an sk-present. That makes the -s- of the aorist a
suffix, not a desinence, from the beginning. A parallel is only a
parallel if you choose to follow it. Languages can also be different
from each other and much more often are.

Jens