From: Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
Message: 54046
Date: 2008-02-23
>--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal <miguelc@...>I didn't think spelling out the reason was necessary.
>wrote:
>>
>> On Sat, 23 Feb 2008 00:35:42 -0000, "tgpedersen"
>> <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >> >> It is also restricted to the third person.
>> >> >
>> >> >And according to Burrows and Jasanoff, so was the s-aorist,
>> >> >which was the line of readoning I tried to carry on.
>> >>
>> >> My point was that it's a much more recent formation (as also
>> >> witnessed by the fact that it's restricted to Indo-Iranian).
>> >
>> >I don't get that line of reasoning. Why can't it be a sole survival
>> >instead?
>>
>> It's the most economical explanation. Furthermore, there is
>> no trace in IE of an inherited "passive" category.
>
>I think that is actually to be read as: "It's the most economical
>explanation because there is no trace in IE of an inherited "passive"
>category", since you provide no other reason why that assumption is
>the most economical. Please object if you think otherwise.
>> An impersonal passive also exists in Celtic, but formally itSlavic?
>> has nothing to do with the impersonal passive aorist in
>> Indo-Iranian. It is generally considered to be a Celtic
>> innovation (built out of remnants of the old hi-conjugation
>> middle). The Sanskrit form could in principle be the lone
>> survival of *something else*, but not of an aorist passive.
>
>That's right, it is a nominal form, thus a participle. It never left
>that pre-stage to a true verbal form (as eg. in Slavic);
>only=======================
>formally, by the grammarians, it was categorized as a verbal form of a
>defective paradigm.
>