Re: [TIED] *hes- "to be"

----- Original Message -----

From: Dan Jones

To: Cybalist

Sent: Friday, June 30, 2000 5:18 PM

Subject: [TIED] *hes- "to be"

I'm not getting tired yet, and I hope these exchanges can be of some interest to other Cybalist mergers. However, if you want to do some reading, there are two well-known introductions to PIE grammar with emphasis on phonology and morphology -- those by Robert S. P. Beekes and Oswald Szemerényi, both translated into English (from Dutch and German, respectively). They are easy to find in Internet bookshops. You can gain more from reading both, as the authors show some idiosyncratic bias in opposing directions. I don't recommend Gamkrelidze & Ivanov's "Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans", whose variety of PIE is spoken with an inordinately heavy Georgian accent.

 

As for *hes- (traditional *es-; Glen Gordon on this list would prefer *?es- with a glottal stop): the meaning 'to be' refers to a continuing state, not to an event or an action, which is why we say that the verb in question is inherently imperfective. The athematic present forms had the *-i suffix which served as a "here and now" deictic marker.

sg. *hés-m-i, *hés-s-i, *hés-t-i

pl. *hs-mé-, *hs-té-, *hs-ónt-i

 

(1/2pl. have different extensions in different branches, most often *-n- or *-s-)

The preterite tense was similar except in having no final *-i (*hesm, *hess, *hest, ... *hsont) and in some branches (especially Indo-Iranian and Greek) was preceded by the so-called augment *é-, a past-time marker: *é-hest > *e:st 'he was, he used to be'. This type of past tense, based on an imperfective stem, is called the IMPERFECT. When used without the augment (*hest) it could also function as the INJUNCTIVE mood -- in simpler terms, a kind of imperative, used especially in prohibitions ('don't be ...', etc.).

 

The AORIST, as opposed to the imperfective, referred to a single action or event. Though *hes- had no aorist form of its own, it could be paired with a different stem (*bHeux- 'to grow, arise, become') when the meaning 'come into existence, begin to be' had to be expressed. This is why English has be/been and is as forms of "the same" verb (was and were come from a third source). Similarly, Latin has est with the past temse fuit, and Russian has jest' associated with the past tens byl. Curiously, Old English had two infinitives (beon and wesan) and alternative present forms (eom, eart, is, pl. sind versus beo, byst, byT, beoT) for 'to be'.

 

The aorist form was therefore suppletive, i.e. borrowed from another paradigm (like went as the preterite of go). The aorist of *bHeux- seems to have been originally a root formation (as opposed to the thematic present and imperfect); the evidence of the daughter languages suggests the following reconstruction, with all forms optionally preceded by the augment *e-; the sg. may owe its nil grade to analogy:

sg. *bHux-m (> *bHu:m), *bHux-s, *bHux-t

pl. *bHux-me, *bHux-te, *bHux-ont

It was also *bHeux- rather than *hes- that produced perfect forms (*bHe-bHoux-e 'has arisen', etc.).

 

I don't think PIE *hes- formed mediopassives (though *bHeux- did, cf. Skt. bhavate < *bHeux-e-to-i). However, if it's any consolation, it had moods other than the indicative. The imperative was *hest-u for 2/3sg. and *hsont-u for 3pl. Alternative forms with *-o:t instead of *-u are also well attested.

 

The SUBJUNCTIVE (or hypothetical) mood ('[if] he were, he might/would be') looked like the thematic counterpart of the indicative:

sg. *hes-o-x (> *eso:), *hes-e-s, *hes-e-t

pl. *hes-o-me, *hes-e-te, *hes-o-nt

The OPTATIVE (or wishing) mood ('may he be') involved the ablauting suffix *-jéh-/*-ih-:

sg. *hs-jéh-m (> *sije:m), -s, -t

pl. *hs-ih-mé (> *si:me), -té, *hs-ih-ónt (> *sijont)

In some branches the optative developed into new subjunctive or imperative forms (e.g. Old English sie, sien).

 

Finally, the active participle ('being, existent') was *hs-ont-, declined like consonantal noun stems:

Nom.sg. *hsónts, Gen. sg. *hsntós, Dat.sg. *hsntéi, Nom.pl. hsóntes, Gen.pl. *hsntóm, etc.

Hope it helps,

 

Piotr

 

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Dan asks: Here's another verb question. If you're getting tired of all my questions about PIE morphology, can anyone recommend a good book with it all in (in English or French, please, my attempts at the Slavic languages have so farbeen unsuccessful!)?

I've been told that *hes- "to be" was by nature an imperfective stem. How then were the perfective and aorist stems formed for this verb? Was it irregular in PIE (like it is all of PIE's descendants) and if so, how? I know it was an athematic verb, hence the athematic endings like *hesmi "I am".

Oh, and did it have a mediopassive form and if so, what was it used for.

hes-si ne hs-si-we?

Dan