SV: The long awaited athematic answer to the athematic question...

From: Piotr Gasiorowski

From: Glen Gordon

Another reason to accept this is that the athematic Tocharian 3rd person appears to be /-a"s./, from a demonstrative *se according to Pedersen, attached to a BARE root! Comments?

I’m not sure what the Tocharian form is supposed to prove. It doesn’t even go back to Proto-Tocharian (Tocharian A pikäš ‘writes’ = Tocharian B pinkäM; A lukäš ‘illuminates’ = B lukšäM).

There is an interesting explanaion for this -äs. (by Jasanoff if I remember correctly): *-ti, *-dhi > *-si > -s. (before word boundary). Supporting evidence: imperative pis. (Toch. A), päs. (Toch. B) of the verb i- 'to go'. This would be the ordinary imperative particle p- + a reflex of *i-dhi. We also have the subjuntive s´mäs. ('he'll come', from the root käm- < *gwem-) < *gwem-e-ti (with palatalization and syncope).

I suppose this would also mean that the athematic ending had to be taken over from the thematic verbs; they differ only in palatalization of the preceding consonant. Any comments?

Urban