Re: Odp: A few PIE questions

Piotr:

Thank you very much for your answers. I have some follow-up questions if you
wouldn't mind answering them.

About PIE infinitives: Does this mean that if you were to say the sentence
"I went to the restaurant to eat" in PIE, the infinitive "to eat" would be
expressed in the form of an abstract noun in the dative case rather than the
verbal root with the abstract noun dative ending? And if it is the first
choice, are there any suffixes added to a verbal root or particular gradation
of vowel length that are common to PIE when forming abstract nouns. Also,
did they tend to be a particular gender (like in Greek, where feminine is
predominant)?

Also, how would you express an infinitive with the verb "to want, wish"? It
doesn't seem to me you could use the abstract noun formation, so would you
have to use the optative mood to express the idea of wishing or wanting
rather than a verb meaning "to want" plus an infinitive?

<<One almost foolproof criterion for telling thematic from athematic verbs is
the form of the first person singular. The ending of thematic verbs is -o:
versus the athematic -mi.>>

This may be a stupid question, but are you referring to the daughter
languages here as the foolproof criterion? And, since Greek and Sanskrit
display both types of endings (as opposed to say Latin where there is only -o
verbs), are Greek and Sanskrit the main daughter languages? And if so, does
Sanskrit take precedence over Greek if there is conflicting information (for
example the case of PIE *bher- where the Sanskrit form is bherami and the
Greek form is phero)? Of course, *bher- is an athematic verb, but I just
wanted to make sure about Sanskrit taking precedence over Greek.

Once again, thank you for your help.

Chad Brown