Re: [tied] 1sg. -o: [was Re: IE Thematic Vowel Rule]

On Wed, 10 Aug 2005 12:38:52 +0200, Piotr Gasiorowski
<gpiotr@...> wrote:

>elmeras2000 wrote:
>
>> Where did I say that? Latin sequor is not opposed to a passive, IE *-
>> o: is the active opposed to a middle which is *-aH2i. Why would *-o:
>> then be an old middle-voice form? With the wrong colour of the
>> thematic vowel, and without the primary marker?
>
>Just a brief comment (I'll be back in a few days and I'll be happy to
>discuss this at length). I used to believe in the *-o-h2 analysis of
>1sg. *-o:, but I've lost all my faith in it. As you can guess, the main
>reason is that there's simply no credible way of acounting for the
>colour of the thematic vowel. The "simplification" of **-o-mi doesn't
>work either -- it's just an ad hoc stipulation.
>
>I think there's another possibility worth considering: the conflation of
>the thematic indicative with the thematic subjunctive in *-o:, which
>could derive from *-o:m < *-e/o-o-m, with early dropping of the final
>nasal after a long vowel.

So that would be the "double thematic" subjunctive of
thematic verbs, which I suppose would have spread from the
thematic subj. to the athematic subj. as well as to the
thematic present indicative?

My solution is that the consonant in the 1st. person was *mW
(and *tW > *sW in the 2sg., from earlier agglutinated
pronouns *mu and *tu, respectively), which explains 1pl.
Hitt. -wen(i), 1sg. Luwian -(a)wi and PIE 1du.
*-wah2/*-wh2a(s). The present thematic ending *-o-mW-i
became *-omWu > *-owu > *-o:u (like u-stem loc.sg. *-ew-i >
*-ew-u > *-e:u), which would explain the Tocharian B 1sg.
thematic ending -eu (< *-o:u), with irregular reduction to
*-o: everywhere else. The Tocharian B 1sg. subjunctive -u
must come from *-ou, which is harder to explain (*-omW
should give (and gives) *-om, not *-ou).

Neither your theory nor mine adequately explains why the
Lithuanian 1sg. ending -ù is formerly acute (*-uó before
Leskien's law). A double thematic *-oo(m) would inevitably
produce a circumflex, and so would my *-o:(u), judging by
akmuõ < *-o:(n), etc.

As far as I can tell, only *-oh3 could have produced the
required acute.

>Phonetically, this is much more plausible than
>any other solution I've seen so far. The replacement of indicative forms
>by corresponding subjunctives is not unprecedented in the historically
>known languages, cf. OE (dial.) 1sg.pres. -u --> -e (cf. also the
>innovated 2sg. of the preterite, e.g. OE bude as opposed to Goth. baust
>< *(bHe-)bHoudH-th2a). In the southern dialects of Polish one finds 1sg.
>pret. -ech for -em on the analogy of <bych> (an original aorist
>converted into a subjunctive in Old Polish).

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...