From: elmeras2000
Message: 36527
Date: 2005-03-01
--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:
[JER:]
> >Is the fact that the preterite of the hi-conjugation and the
> >Tocharian preterite III agree in showing an -s- in the 3sg only
> >really so important that we have to change the classical doctrine
of
> >the IE verbal system for that reason?
[MCV:]
> I think so. Especially since there is *-s in the 3pl. as
> well.
What is the evidence for a 3pl *-s? The isolated Avestan pluperfect
<ciko:it&r&s^> ? I find no s-marking in the 3pl of the hi-
conjugation or in the Toch. prt. III. - How can one assume an
original *-s in the 3pl of the PIE prestage of the hi-conjugation?
And if one can, how can that be an especially decisive reason to
change the classical doctrine of the IE verb? Is the grand
revolution clutching at a straw?
> >I do not think so. For one
> >thing, the two languages disagree fundamentally in the middle
voice
> >which has a pervasive -s- in Tocharian, but nothing of the sort
in
> >Anatolian.
>
> There is no -s- in Anatolian. Tocharian has non-sigmatic
> o-grade middles in the _intransitives_ that make an
> "s-preterit" (Toch A. nakät, tsakät, etc.). Tocharian B has
> sigmatized these, but with retained o-grade. The
> _transitives_ are sigmatic in Toch. A & B. Vedic has
> s-middles, with e-grade, everywhere. The original situation
> is thus preserved in Anatolian.
I find this incoherent. It is crucial to your argument that the
Tocharian s-less middle forms continue the same category as those
having -s-, only in a more original shape. But is that the truth?
The verbs concerned all form thematic presents in Tocharian and
elsewhere (Ved. nas'a-, daha-, paca-; reflected in the Toch.
subjunctive, B nke-, tske-, pke-, identical with Vedic dáha:ti,
paca:ti). Now, if that represents a displaced root-aorist
subjunctive, the original aorists of these verbs were root-aorists.
It seems to me to be the easiest solution that these are indeed
archaic remains, however not from a putative proto-hi-conjugation,
but from the original root aorist. Where the root aorist was not
retained it was replaced by the productive sigmatic aorist. Much of
that replacement belongs to PIE already. For the verbs concerned
Vedic reflects pervasive -s- in páks.at, adha:k, but Tocharian
apparently restricted the renewal to the active. Now the decisive
question is: Is the vocalism of A nakät, tsakät that of the old
middle-voice forms, or has it copied that of the sigmatic forms
which is the same? The partly sigmatic structure of preterite III is
easily derived from a blend of the perfect and the s-aorist because
IE *-o- and *-e:- merged in Tocharian. All in all, there is no need
for any PIE sources other than the perfect, the s-aorist and the
root aorist in any of this, meaning that it can all be derived from
the classical picture of the IE verb.
> >All we need is to find a way for a 3sg ending of the s-
> >aorist
>
> There was no s-aorist.
I find that view absurd - I find the s-aorist everywhere.
> The s-aorist is derived from the Anatolian/Tocharian
> s-preterite by replacing the stative endings *-h2a, *-th2a
> by *-m, *-s from the active aorist (root aorist), and adding
> *-t to the 3rd. person.
The earlier existence of a full s-aorist in a prestage of Tocharian
is shown by the present in *-se/o- which are identical with the
Vedic s-aorist subjunctives (váks.at); these forms have retained
their subjunctive value in Vedic, but have been refunctioned into
presents in a telling repetition of the genesis of the thematic
present from root-aorist subjunctives.
>
> We then have:
>
> *-m
> *-s
> *-s-t
> ..
> *-rs
I do not see that. What I see is
*-s-m
*-s-s
*-s-t
*-s-me
*-s-te
*-s-nt
The 1.2.3.sg have lengthened grade, and the form of the 3pl (Gk. -
san) reflects acrostatic ablaut; so does a middle form like Ved. 1sg
ámam.si, Avest. m&:n.ghi: 'I thought' from *mén-s-&2. I find it very
hard to account for the last-mentioned form if the middle voice of
the s-aorist is supposed not to have existed at the time of the
phonetic operation of the ablaut.
>
> which becomes by a simple analogy:
>
> *-s-m
> *-s-(s)
> *-s-t
> ..
> *-s-rs
>
> This scenario was played out once, in the core IE languages
> that have an s-aorist.
This is superfluous if the s-aorist was already there in the
protolanguage from which they all come. I think the grand revolution
is being built on sand.
Jens