From: Miguel Carrasquer
Message: 36692
Date: 2005-03-10
>--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:Jasanoff makes a good case for it being a pluperfect. Now a
>> What I object
>> to, with Jasanoff, is the completely arbitrary and
>> rigour-less way in which reduplication or lack of it is
>> handled in "standard theory". The Hittite hi-conjugation is
>> seen as a dereduplicated perfect, in spite of the fact that
>> reduplication is not otherwise lost in Hittite, even in
>> forms clearly associated with the perfect, like wewakta.
>
>I do not think there is any particular lack of rigour in the
>conservative theory. wewak- is every bit as much of a loner as beben
>is in German and ded-/da:d- are in Balto-Slavic.
>One can say withoutWhat about the present?
>any appalling degree of latitude that reduplication was lost in
>particular categories which invite identification with the perfect.
>In Germanic it was then lost wherever it was dispendable, which it
>was in staig, naut, band, bar, gaf, while it was transformed in
>fo:r, strategies which could not work phonetically in haihald,
>haihait which then retained it. The Hittite thing is even easier,
>for the claim is not that the hi-conjugation continues the perfect
>directly; the claim is that verbs with o-vocalism (or vocalisms that
>were identified with o-vocalism) used the endings of the perfect in
>their preterite
>, the product being the root-form of the underlyingDoesn't work for me.
>verb followed by the endings of the perfect. It would be like Latin
>spondeo spopondi, adjusted to pf. *spondi. I can't for the life of
>me see what is terrible with this scenario. For the Balto-Slavic
>facts I have even added rigor by advocating a conservative
>derivation from reduplicated intensive structures like *ml-mólH-
>/*mél-mlH-, which I have supported by the evidence of the accent:
>the action of Hirt's law demands an asyllabic laryngeal, which can
>only be supplied in *molH- if this was earlier reduplicated.
>I also see dereduplication in the Hitt. sk-verbs which areMelchert claims that laryngeals do not syllabize in
>iterative; I can understand an iterative function on the basis of
>earlier reduplication, but not so well from the sk-form itself which
>was inchoative. I can then also understand the lack of syllabic
>reflex of the laryngeal in zikizzi from *dhH1-sk^é- if this is from
>earlier *dhi-dhH1-sk^e-.
>Most verbs that are reduplicated in HittiteI don't suppport that scenario, but, certainly, it's
>do not have transparent IE pedigrees and may then well belong to a
>later stage which is not relevant here.
>
>> The same goes for Tocharian: class III preterites and class
>> V subjunctives are treated as dereduplicated perfects,
>> despite the fact that Tocharian maintains the reduplicated
>> aorist, and has reduplication in the perfect participle
>> (kaknu/kekenu, etc.).
>
>So? Sbj. V shows general initial accent in B and so has apparently
>retained the reduplication. Can't reduplication be retained in the
>perfect participle and be lost in the finite forms of the perfect
>that invaded the s-aorist?
>> In LIV, Hitt. paddai, Lat. fodio andIndeed not. But I have an explanation for o/e ablaut which
>> Slavic bodoN, bosti are derived, contrary to fact, from
>> reduplicated *bhe-bhodhh2-, while the Slavic form is
>> separated from its Baltic cognate Lith. bedù (besti)
>> (supposedly from PIE *bhedhh2-e-). The same nonsense, but
>> in reverse, is seen in the root "to grind", where Hitt.
>> malli, Goth. malan and Lith. malù (málti) are derived from
>> *me-molh2-, while Slavic meljoN, melti is derived from
>> *melh2-. If we stick to the facts instead of preconceived
>> notions, it should be obvious that neither *bhodhh2- nor
>> *molh2- shows any reduplication anywhere, and that the
>> alternation of o- and e-vocalism seen in Balto-Slavic is
>> best explained as deriving it from the Ablaut o/e (sg.
>> *bhodhh2- ~ pl. *bhedhh2-; sg. *molh2-, pl. *melh2-) which
>> is in fact _attested_ in Hittite in this very same category
>> of verbs.
>
>I do not feel responsible for LIV.
>
>One of the main reasons I cannot accept an original o/e ablaut in
>ther verb is that I cannot just copy it from the noun because I have
>an explanation for it in the noun, and the verb does not offer the
>conditions for that explanation. This is of course no problem to
>those who have no explanation for the o/e ablaut anywhere, but that
>cannot really be put down as lack of rigour on my part.
>The o/eBut the ugly truth is that the relict reduplicated forms in
>ablaut seen in the hi-conjugation is in my opinion well enough
>explained from a reduced form of the intensive: *bhedh-bhódhH-
>/*bhédh-bhdhH- -> *bhódhH-/*bhédhH-. The evidence for the exact
>shape of the PIE intensive is not overwhelming, so if a squashed
>variant *mélH- (reduced from *mél-mlH-) of PIE age helps I cannot
>see it could not be accepted.
>
>> What this means for the relationship between the perfect and
>> e.g. the hi-conjugation in Hittite is not entirely clear.
>>
>> Jasanoff sticks to the notion of the perfect as a
>> reduplicated category (albeit originally with *o ~ *e
>> Ablaut), which implies that the hi-conjugation is thus not
>> simply derivable from the perfect. In fact, the perfect is
>> derived according to Jasanoff from a certain hi-conjugation
>> formation (the "stative-intransitive aorist") by
>> reduplication. Apart from the fact that I find it
>> impossible to explain Jasanoff's theory in one paragraph
>> (it's much too complicated for that), it also fails to
>> answer some of the obvious questions: what happened to the
>> perfect in Hittite? Why do we not find reduplication in
>> Germanic in formations that should be derived from the
>> "classic" perfect (praeterito-presents, preterites from
>> e-verbs), and why *do* we find reduplication in forms where,
>> I think, we wouldn't expect it within the framework of
>> Jasanoff's theory (the preterite of o-verbs, with o~e
>> Ablaut)?
>
>I agree on most points. I would find it very strange to assume that
>Germanic man 'I remember' is not the same form as the synonymous
>Lat. memini, Gk. mémona. For staig : haihait I think I have found
>the answer (Osthoff excluding -o:-). You get close to a fine -o-/-e-
>ablaut in OE ha:tan heht if you count the vowel of the reduplication.
>> The alternative would be to let go of reduplication as aWell, I don't have that problem.
>> necessary component of the PIE perfect, which is what I'm
>> currently contemplating. I have no idea as yet whether
>> that's a viable hypothesis and, if so, where it leads to.
>> We'll just have to wait and see. Or shake one's head,
>> whatever.
>
>I think we need original reduplication in the perfect; I actually
>believe the reduplication is the cause of its o/zero ablaut.