Re: PIE meaning of the Germanic dental preterit

On Sat, 01 Mar 2008 23:52:29 -0000, "tgpedersen"
<tgpedersen@...> wrote:

>
>> But if the endings are a mix of aorist/imperfect, added to
>> the past participle, then that immediately explains why the
>> forms have preterite meaning. Like Jens says in the article
>> quoted above: "A functional explanation of Goth. satida <
>> Proto-Germanic *satiðe: 'he placed' that involves both the
>> participle satiþs < *satiða-z 'placed' and the old form of
>> _did_, PGmc. ðeðe:, does not have to go beyond the simple
>> fact that such a collocation means, not 'did place', but
>> 'made placed'.". Exactly!
>
>Now Jens did it too! And I didn't get an answer first time: Why
>PIE e: > Gothic a?

Because that's what it gives. What else could it give? Acute
long vowels are shortened in Gothic, so the choices are
limited to -a, -i or -u. We have -o: > -a, -e: > -a, -i: >
-i (I'm not aware of any cases of -u:, but if there were, I
suppose -u: > -u).


=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
miguelc@...