From: Rick McCallister
Message: 63618
Date: 2009-03-19
--- On Thu, 3/19/09, tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
. . .
> I don't think a language would need an impersonal and a
> passive both.
>
Why not? Spanish has both.
Se vendió el carro. impersonal
Ha vendido el carro. passive
>
>
> Anyway, here's my version.
>
> PIE verb stems were originally also nominal (there might
> have been nominalizing now lost suffix). To nominal
> elements, thus also to verb stems, could be added the three
> deictic particles PPIE 'nu' "at me",
> 'sa' "at thee" and 'ta' "at
> him/her/it".
Kinda Celtic looking
>The latter, in PIE -tó-, gave the
> impersonal 3sg preterite. PIE forms presents from that by
> adding either -i or -r, I suspect both are the postposition
> *en, so that present forms are originally participial, cf
> French 'en parlant ...', which by some creolizing
> stage became finite, cf. those sub-standard Englishes which
> leave out the copula in the progressive tenses, making -ing
> a finite suffix.
>
> Torsten
>
Substandard or superstandard? Whachu talkin' 'bout? 'p
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