Rob:
> Take your time. :)
Not enough... time... must hurry... speeding... working...
running... help...
> It seems to me to be more likely that 'Tyrrhenian' separated from IE
> before the advent of personal verb endings in the latter.
I don't think so. I think Tyrrhenian simply lost them. It had a little
more than three thousand years to lose them in my view. Many IE languages
have become simplified like this too.
> Etruscan /tva/ could be connected to IE /dwe-/,
There is no such root. Roots don't end in *e in IE. You need a coda!
I frankly don't know what it could be connected to yet and I don't
really expect to find IE connections for every verb. There are Roman,
Greek and Anatolian layers to sift apart before that.
> Is it possible that the -a suffix is really not a separate element,
> but rather just the bare stem?
We don't see /-a/ in derivatives. Therefore, no. While it's unusual
to have the present being marked, it is also possible that /-a/
really is the 1ps and 3ps ending, in which case Tyrrhenian WOULD have
endings. Ugh! Unfortunately we can't assert anything until that missing
2ps pronoun pops up complete with verb form. At this point, I'm
predicting that singular "you" is *zi, or *zin in the accusative but we
already have a verb root /zin-/ "to lathe (pottery)" which we musn't
confuse it with. If the 2ps ending had survived from IndoTyr, I'd expect
*-ar, but this is identical with the plural and could cause confusion
so conceivably there could have been a pressure to level all persons
to /-a/ in the present tense. This is all hopeless conjecture for now.
> Etruscan seems rather devoid of diphthongs, [...]
Not at all! Many examples:
/tHevru/ "bull"
/lautn/ "freeman"
/tiur/ "moon, month"
/ais/ "god"
Typically diphthongs are found in the first syllable but that afterall
is where the stress is anyway. The first syllable isn't so prone to
erosion as elsewhere.
> If that is the case, then perhaps past -e < -ai?
Despite the fact that Etruscan _does_ have diphthongs, I've considered
exactly that. We see /-ai/ on the Lemnian Stele verbs which must be
written with the past tense in mind. Given my new idea, this would
correlate with Etruscan /-e/, not with /-a/ as I previously thought
in naivete.
> It seems that there was some kind of rudimentary vowel harmony or
> assimilation going on here, as you quote -ac-, not -uc-,
This is what they say, particularly later in the language.
So the story goes, we see /turace/, then /turuce/, and then by heavy
stress after circa 500 BCE, /turce/. They're all the same word meaning
"has given". Basically, the vowels in non-initial syllables are slowly
disintegrating before our eyes throughout the stages of the language.
Cool eh?
> Another possibility is that the root for 'give' is really /turu-/,
> not /tur-/.
Nope. Where do you think Turan's name comes from?
> Looks like the root for 'outnumber' is /eni-/, not /en-/.
Not necessarily. I've noticed the intervening /i/ elsewhere. Another
example in Etruscan is on the Pyrgi Tablet: /tHem-i-asa/. The verb
root is /tHem-/ and the ending is /-asa/ but /i/ likes to show up
for a tea party now and then. Strangely this may also occur in Minoan
if 'PK Za 12' says /KA-NA-YA-SI/ instead of the usual /KA-NA-SI/ which
I translate as "pour" and connect with Etruscan /cena/. The exact
equivalent of Minoan /unar kanasi/ (U-NA-RO-KA-NA-SI) would have been
Etruscan */unacHva cenase/.
> Also, it seems like the present-future form of the perfect stem is
> more conducive to being treated as a future than that of the
> 'imperfect' stem.
Possibly. The fact that we don't see /-ca/ too often would be in line
with what we'd expect for the frequency of a future tense in texts like
these that normally refer to a past event like burial or a habitual (and
thus present) event like a ritual.
> Was /vinum/ borrowed from Latin?
I have to bite the bullet on this one and accept a Latin origin, yes.
I know I've argued against in the past, but I've been digging into
the Etruscan books lately and have been so disgusted with the lack of
consistency that I've radically altered some preconceptions I've once
had.
> The form /trin/, if indeed derived from /tur-/, suggests non-
> regularly-initial stress accent.
It suggests a migration of accent on the second syllable from time to
time. Note also a possible relationship between /tmia/ "temple" (or
more generally "building"?) and /tHemiasa/ "build" in the same tablet.
The former might be analysed as /tHem-/ + /-ia/ (which forms some
other collective nouns like /vinim-ia/ "wine" as well as feminine
names like Larthia).
> Presumably, the earlier form was something like /tur-in-a/.
Yes, I think just that.
> The middle suffix in /-Vn/ may be connected with the Altaic middle
Actually, let's backtrack. You're theorizing too far back. We need
only connect it with the IE *n-infix, although the relationship
between the two isn't immediately obvious to me, I admit. In IE,
the *n-forms typically form presents.
> Based on what you say below and on your analysis of the morphemes, I
> think it's possible that the -ch affix was a stative, not a passive.
Hmm. I'll think about that. You might be right.
> This certainly suggests a connection between 'Tyrrhenian' aorist /-
> as/ and IE aorist /-s/.
Yes. I reconstruct MIE *-as- for the aorist as well as *-an- for the
*n-infix which wasn't an infix before Syncope. The compensatory
lengthening accompanying the sigmatic aorist as well as the infixing
of *n are the result of shifts in verb root shape during that stormy
time that allowed for greater complexity (like CVCC- or CCVCC- or
even CCCVCC verb roots for example instead of the tongue-friendly CVC-
ones found in MIE).
> Could there be a connection between the final marker /-ch/ and the
> perfect non-final marker /-c/.
I'd say that there is a connection rather between IE *-ax- (transitive)
and Etruscan /-cH-/.
> Could the /-u/ participle be connected with the IE 'perfect active'
> participle /-wos/?
Exactly. Except *-wos is an extended version of MIE *-au > *-u. As far
as I'm concerned, *-u forms other words on its own with a passive
meaning: *peku 'herd' < MIE *pek-au.
= gLeN