>Oy veh, I KNOW already. Enough with the thematic *-e/o- lecture. :P
>[...] The irregular non-thematic verbs such as *weid- "to know" or >*ed-
>"to eat", I conclude, must be verbs borrowed after this >generalization.
Piotr:
>Do read up on IE morphology before you apply finishing touches to >your
>deeper reconstruction: *weid- is athematic when conjugated as a >perfect:
>*woid-xa, *woid-txa, *woid-e [...] but then ALL such IE >perfects are
>athematic! The only irregular thing about the perfect >of *w(o)id- in
>non-Anatolian IE is that it isn't reduplicated.
You're right, but I _did_ know this. It's all accounted for in my theory on
my site but I typed too quickly in the previous letter - a stupid slip. No
need to be hostile though. To err is human, afterall, and if every linguist
was completely dismissed for making an error here and there, this list would
never exist. :)
The perfects didn't have the old objective (imperfect) *-e since the
perfective conjugation derives from a totally different set of pronominal
endings that were once used for the _subjective_. The subjective
(perfective) third person was originally non-terminating in both singular
and plural as opposed to the objective suffixes, singular *-e and plural
*-ene. Bomhard tries to support the idea that *-s was used in the 3rd person
objective singular based on some stuff here and there but this looks like a
red herring.
At any rate, if you're honestly willing to discuss, first read up on my site
to get a better grapple of what I'm trying to say:
http://glen-gordon.tripod.com/language.html
As for *weid-, I still feel that it is foreign. Do you have comments on
Akkadian /idu:/?
Now back to the athematic imperfect...
>Do you seriously believe *ed- is a loanword? Where from?
Probably Semitic. Bomhard attempts to relate the word to Kartvelian (Svan
/xt?u:r-/ "to cut into pieces") and AfroAsiatic *hat?- "to scratch, to
scrape, to cut into, to hollow out" under #405 but his reconstructions are
sometimes sadly duplicated and permutated - I've noted that his above
connection is related to #418 and #623. Under #418, he mentions a similar
Semitic form *?at?-am- "to bite into".
However, under #623, Bomhard is kind enough to offer a basis for his twisted
version of #405, this time reconstructed as AA *hat- meaning "to split or
tear off or apart, to shatter, to destroy".
Some interesting tidbits though:
Arabic h.itta "piece, morsel"
Jibbali h.ett "to gnaw (as a mouse)"
Hebrew h.a:thath "to be shattered, to be broken..."
h.a:thaf "to seize, to snatch away"
Conjectural, yes, but then, less so than connecting this IE root to two very
remote Nostratic languages that are seperated by some 15,000 years without
strong intermediary attestations. The only possible nearer connection to IE
is some scanty Altaic stuff (Mongolian ide- "to eat, feed on, gnaw...";
Buriat ed'e- "to eat"; Dagur ide- "to eat") as listed under #418 but the
forms look like they should correlate with a non-existant IE root **edh- and
what's worse, don't appear securely reconstructed to Altaic anyway. After
all this, we still have to explain the athematic nature of the verb!
Thus three possibilities: borrowing (hello, sister-friend!),
inheritance (totally barf-eroney!)
or...
aliens (the truth is out there) :P
>And what about *es- 'to be',
Semitic.
I can't consider *es- a basic verb. It's apparent by simply examining IE
itself that *es- was just not used in the furthest past. It was certainly in
common use by the time Hellenic and IndoIranian broke away. I remember it
being treated as obligatory in some cases in Hittite. This verb root is
absent in Etruscan. In Boreal languages like Uralic, the verb is completely
done without.
A proper conclusion would be that *es-, first meaning something parallel
like "to live", was taken later to be used as a verb "to be" in absence of
such a word. Unless you might know where I could find some cognates within
Nostratic, I consider this word foreign.
Akkadian /asu:/ "to reside" might provide additional clues.
>*ei- 'to go'
So far, I'm visualizing: Inherited from Steppe (*i-, *it- "to go").
It could easily and very understandably get sucked into the athematics by
accident after being perceived as a "basic verb" like *es-, *ed- et al
which, afterall, have very similar forms (All initial vowels... or *H1, if
you care to believe in its supposed status as a distinct phoneme).
>*gWHen- 'to slay'
Semitic.
I also prefer to write *ghWen-. The root would theoretically derive from a
Steppe form *gun- if it were native, but we would have trouble explaining
this lack of thematic vowel of a supposedly native verb. There is absolutely
nothing to substantiate an ancient division of athematic and thematic verbs
in Steppe. This is purely IE in nature.
So, sorry, but I have to accuse it of being foreign also. Coincidentally,
Bomhard has a suspiciously meager cognate series at #312 *gWan-/*gW@... "to
hit, to strike...". The only item he relates to IE *ghWen- is, lo and
behold, an AfroAsiatic reconstruction *gWan- "to hit, strike, slay, kill,
wound, harm, injure". I just have to find the basis of this reconstruction
and I'm home free here.
I admit to needing to find a more detailed book on valid Semitic
reconstructions. I don't trust Bomhard's polymorphic AA reconstructions.
>*dHeh- 'to put'
Question: Are there thematic laryngeal-terminating verbs? Do Anatolian
languages clearly demonstrate that *dheh- is athematic in opposition to
other differing laryngeal verbs? It might be a stupid question in the end,
but I'm pretending to be human.
>and many other "basic" verbs, all of them with consonantal stems?
Piotr, of course they are "consonantal stems". They are athematic (aka
lacking a following vowel), hence making them consonant final stems... Looks
like you are prone to a some errors too :) Welcome, fellow human. Have a
beer!
>Are they all borrowed?
Apparently *ei- doesn't look borrowed although, you never know.
>What about "polymorphic" verbs, i.e. verbal roots which yield both
> >thematic and athematic formations? Say, *leikW-e-ti 'abandons' >versus
>*linekW-ti with a nasal infix and no thematic vowel?
You are Satan! Polymorphic verbs?! Now I have to devote another paragraph,
sigh. This verb *leikW- has always struck me as odd because of a) its form
and b) the nasal infix.
Labiovelars, as I've said before, are artifacts of a former neighbouring *u.
This is based on correlations commonly found in Nostratic studies such as
*ku > *kWe [relative enclitic]. So, if this is true, we should expect
*leikW-e- to derive from an earlier disyllabic root **liku-. The problem is:
*liku would most certainly have become IE **lekWe-. A pattern such as *eiC
is highly indicative of a borrowing (*weid-, *gheido-, *bheid-). The plot
thickens...
As for the nasal infix, it is relatable to the Uralic potential *-ne marker
and is nothing more than a specially placed modal suffix. In a normal verb,
we would expect it to be placed first before any other mood markers.
However, what mood does *-kW express? None, I imagine. Rather, after the
word was borrowed in entirety, the *-kW ending was mistakingly re-analysed
as some kind of mood marker of thitherto lost meaning. The word was then
thought of as *lei- + *-kW, which is not true.
I wonder what wonderful morsels we might find in Semitic with a form like
**l(V)iku. Could it be that the word is borrowed and later dumped into the
thematic class by mistake by the same kinds of analogy that sucked *ei- into
the athematic?
>Your handling of innocent IE verbs strikes me as somewhat >Procrustean.
Your IE verbs are hardly innocent. Some of them have been around sleeping
around :) Procrustean? As in "tending to produce conformity by violent or
arbitrary means"? If you mean "by violent means", I'm flattered that you
think this theory has so much gusto. However, something tells me you're
going for "arbitrary".
How is this hypothesis arbitrary? I'm simply doing what many have done
before me which is taking a seemingly irregular pattern and providing a
regular explanation to explain most of it.
I explain most of the nonsensical IE stress accent with regular penultimate
accent and loss of final vowel. I explain most of the athematic imperfect
verbs as being borrowed. These are valid conclusions as any. If you're
looking for "absolute" theories that explain everything, you may visit
Patrick Ryan's ProtoWorld site and delight in his godlike intellect.
Back in the real world, we should expect some exceptions to rules. The value
in these imperfect theories is that they help explain the majority of the
phenomena. Might I remind that Grimm's Law doesn't explain everything either
(enter Verner's Sweet Little Law). Extra laws are always needed to fill the
gaps. But maybe we should throw Grimm's Law away in haste because Grimm
didn't catch the exceptions all by himself.
Not all athematic verbs are borrowed and sometimes the accent doesn't fall
where it should because of later changes after loss of final vowel that
regularised a wandering root-only accent to initial (cf. thematic stems like
*bhere-). So sue me!
I guess I should ask, Piotr, "Is there a better theory?". I'd like to hear
it. Sometimes being wrong is better than being right because it means the
mystery's not over yet.
- gLeN
PS: If you've read this far, folks, you should call it a day and have a nap
away from the computer screen. :)
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