IE finite verb forms as non-finite ones

> 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".
> 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.

Tac. Germ. 46

'Peucinorum Venethorumque et Fennorum nationes Germanis an Sarmatis ascribam dubito'.

"I am in doubt whether to ascribe the nations of Peucini, Veneti and Fenni to the Germani or to the Sarmatae".


The phrase before 'dubito' would traditionally be analyzed as a dependent clause serving as object of dubito; one could instead understand the finite (subjunctive 1sg pres.) verb form 'ascribam' as a finite, but inflected one (participle, 1sg pres.).


Torsten