[tied] Re: Bader's article on *-os(y)o

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

> Allright. There are plenty of other forms showing zero grade
> (ptc. stuvánt, stutá, imper. stuhí, pf. tus.t.uvúr,
> pf.middle tus.t.uve:, passive stu:yáte:, etc.).

That was never disputed. The productive system is full grade vs.
zero-grade, but some verbs have preserved relics of a type with an
ablaut in which the alternants were one mora longer.

> As far as
> I'm concerned, the Ablaut of this verb (and others like it)
> is basically */e:u/ ~ */u/.

That does not change things. The middle voice has steûtai in Greek
and stáve in Vedic, the middle participle is Vedic stáv:ana-, and
the active participle is stauuas in Avestan; also the present
sta:uti is Avestan, in competition with staoimi. The Narten ablaut
has been found in too many relics to be chanted back into the
ground, as some Leiden colleagues are doing now. It's a funny
display of lack of good will: The South German gang did not like
Winter's Law, because they had Narten, now Leiden does not like
Narten, because they want to vindicate Winter. I believe both are
facts.

> I agree that for instance all
> the thematic forms with /eu/ are normalizations,

I don't.

> but I
> cannot agree that the peculiar ablaut is only preserved in
> archaic relics. The present indicative singular is not a
> relic, it's at the very heart of the system!

That's where archaisms are often found. We often see that the most
prominent inflectional forms preserve archaisms, as a special ablaut
form in the nominative and accusative, while the rest is levelled.

> Now I didn't mean to do so, but I stumbled across the Ablaut
> pattern /e:/ ~ /0/ (< *í: ~ i:) while investigating matters
> totally unrelated to Narten presents. I think it solves the
> problem that had been patched by invoking analogy and
> normalizations. If the present indicative was:
>
> *stí:w-mi > *sté:umi
> *stí:w-si > *sté:usi
> *stí:w-ti > *sté:uti
> *sti:w-més(i) > *stumési
> *sti:w-té > *stuté
> *sti:w-énti > *stuénti
>
> the Vedic forms would all be regular. And so would all the
> other athematic forms made from thsi root, except for the
> middle ptc. stava:ná- and the "stative" (t-less) middle
> stave:, and perhaps the s-aorist middle asto:-s.- (except I
> need to figure out what Macdonell means that _all_ roots
> ending in -u and -i go like that). I think that's a good
> start.

I am not fighting for this particular example, but we would need
more than just your word to accept /i:/ as the underlying vocalism.
Especially we need to know why pretonic /i:w/ could not produce *ew.
There is no problem in the ptc. stutá- which is just the way all
particples are: zero vocalism + accented *-tó-, if need be by
reshaping.

> >>> [*big* snip]
> >> Agreed so far.
> >
> >Well, that's a lot!
>
> Yes it is.

That is nice.

> >> >The strong paradigm forms should then be based on structures

with a

> >> >long vowel in the root segment. But we often find an o-vowel,

as

> >> >in 'house', 'foot' and 'night'. There are no verbs of this kind
> >>
> >> Ahem. There's plenty of them. A sample from Jasanoff pp.
> >> 74/75:
> >>
> >> *molh2-/*melh2-
> >> *bhodh(h1)-/*bhedh(h1)-
> >> *bhorH-/*bherH-
> >> *dhou-/*dheu-
> >> *g^hongh-/*g^hemgh-
> >> *ghrobh-/*ghrebh-
> >> *h2wos-/*h2wes-
> >> *sor-/*ser-
> >> *h2wog-s-/*h2weg-s-
> >> *gWol-s-/*gWel-s-
> >
> >I do not accept that at all. These are intensives that used to be
> >reduplicated.
>
> I can only repeat after Jasanoff: "[] it is simply not
> credible that an inherited present *mí-m(o)lh2- or
> *mé-m(o)lh2- [or *mél-molh2 --mcv] would have lost its
> reduplication across the length and breadth of the IE family
> -- including specifically Anatolian, where reduplication is
> in general extremely well preserved." (with a footnote to
> the effect that Hittite retains the reduplicated noun
> <memal> "groats").

The intensive *was* lost as a category in all branches except Indo-
Iranian, why is that credible? And in IIr. it *is* reduplicated. The
core of the matter is the controversy of the basis of the hi-
conjugation which just will never end. I think it is simple: The hi-
conjugation continues the perfect and is made up of all verbal
lexemes that preserved the IE perfect, if only (originally) as a
preterite, AND all the many other verbs whose vocalism was also -o-
or so close to -o- that they were given the same inflection as the
descendant of the perfect. The second part is often forgotten in
accounts, in which case the account loses all credibility.

>
> >The working of Hirt's law in the Balto-Slavic examples
> >has showed that, and I told the world, but it was too complicated
> >for it. I have had complaints. I might be swayed if it did not

mean

> >sacrificing all prospects of having rules in this.
>
> Well, you don't need Hirt's law to retract the accent in a
> heavy verbal root with acrostatic Ablaut /ó/ ~ /é/.

I do. It's the behaviour of the infinitive that is at stake here.
All infinitives are accented as far to the right as sound laws
permit in Slavic and Latvian (and in Lithuanian they do not lengthen
accented e and a which is also a reflex of old final accent). There
is very plainly retraction by Hirt's law in both branches. I had
worked that out myself when I saw Dybo had already done it. I cannot
think it is just wrong.

>
> >> My suggestion is to accept the facts as they are: /ó/ is the
> >> regular reflex of a pre-PIE lengthened vowel **/a:/.
> >
> >The long vowel corresponding to /e/ is /e:/. That cannot just be
> >overlooked.
>
> Nor should its many-splendoured simplicity blind us from
> considering other possibilities. Sure, the "nominative
> lengthening" of /e/ produces /e:/ in *p&2tér-z > *p&2té:r,
> nobody can overlook that. But Narten presents are already
> more difficult to fit into the straightjacket of /e:/ ~ /e/
> Ablaut. And the whole concept is of course totally
> unhelpful when it comes to explaining the origins of
> /o/-grade.

I just did that with it.

> [snip all about *wodr --I knew about it, and I'm afraid my
> mind is quite made up in favour of my simpler solution]

I'm sure it is.

> >> The few remaining irregularities can easily be explained by
> >> the fact that pre-PIE had two (x2) additional vowels besides
> >> *a(:), namely *i(:) and *u(:), as typologically required in
> >> any case.
> >
> >That is not a "fact", and it is not what we see.
>
> I did not present it as a "fact". It's a hypothesis, which
> happens to be supported by typology.

The typology of one-vowel IE is like Sanskrit. How can Indo-
Europeanists dismiss the sheer possibility of that?

Jens