Re: sum

From: elmeras2000
Message: 38485
Date: 2005-06-09

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>
wrote:
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "elmeras2000" <jer@...> wrote:
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > I believe the compound of them in Hittite is -i-s^k-. Where's
the
> > > -e? If so, -sk^é- and -yé- are post-PIH, PIE. That's late PIE
(and
> > > BTW by 'late' I always mean 'late PIE').
> >
> > Again, I don't quite understand. What does "them" refer to? Your
> > question "Where's the -e?" is strange. The -e- follows after -sk-
,
> > so does the *-o-: Oettinger gives the Hittite endings of sk-
verbs
> > like this: -skami, -skesi, -skezzi, -skaweni, -skette/ani, -
skanzi.
> > That fits the other branches exactly.
> >
> This is how I think it is: There are athematic and semithematic
and
> thematic paradigms in the various IE languages (but not all
paradigm,s
> in all IE languages, obviously). Therefore they might also have
> coexisted in PIE. What I'm saying is I think that historically, in
pre-
> PIE and in pre-pre-PIE, as you want it to be, two of those
paradigms,
> namely the athematic and the thematic were formed (invented,
arose) on
> the basis of the third, the semi-thematic. So -sk^e/o- and -ye/o-
> would exist in PIE, but they had been formed in pre-PIE, at such a
> time as the thematic patradigm had been invented (arisen bla-bla).

So now both structures, the commonly reconstructed *H1és-mi and the
Schmalstieg-inspired *H1só(:)mi posited in honour of Latin sum, are
possible morphological structures in PIE. Then the question is,
(what was the form of "I am" in PIE? Now, "I am" is (1) Gothic im,
2) Old Irish -amm (Gaulish imi or immi), (3) Old Lithuanian esmi,
OCS jesmI, (4) Albanian jam, (5) Armenian em, (6) Greek eimí, (7)
Sanskrit asmí (Av. ahmi, OP amiy), (8) Hittite esmi. Tocharian uses
a different word, ad Latin and Oscan have sum. So, out of the nine
branches that have diagnostic material, eight point to *H1esmi, and
one looks like *H1somi. Of the eight votes for *H1esmi, some at
least (1-6) are from languages in which the very form /esmi/ is
itself a gross irregularity. That already makes it compelling to
posit a protoform of the structure *H1esmi, provided there is any
conceivable avenue by which this form can turn into Latin sum. And
of course there is, there are probably many, but the shortest way is
of course adjustment to the partly de-thematicized allegro-based
outcomes of *bhero: bheresi etc. and subsequent internal adjustment
of its alternants to get the same stem-form in sum as in sumus sunt,
because these forms go together in fero fermus ferunt and edo edimus
edunt. When that is done, *edo(:)mi goes on to become edo: after
fero: (and lego: etc.), while *som(:)i stays like that and develops
regularly into sum.

I am myself in possession of old handouts I once made for classroom
teaching on the IE verb stipulating *H1sómi and *bhróm(i). Over the
years I have found it increasingly embarrassing that actual material
never obeyed that stipulation, and so I have changed it to achieve
better harmony between what I postulate and what I can actualy find.
That has made a number of problems go away.

Jens