There are new trends
afoot. I look forward to Jasanoff's book on IE conjugations, which will sum
up a lot of fascinating research that has been going on for decades. The turning
of the tide is evident even in publications addressed to the general reader.
What D. Q. Adams presents in the EIEC is already very different from the
late-19th-century system traditionally shown in earlier handbooks.
There are two major
conjugations, each with subtypes. The first is what used to be called
"athematic" (*gWHen-mi, *gWHen-si, *gWHen-ti, ... *gWHn-enti). The second is
divided into two subclasses (say, IIa and IIb), both with endings similar to
those reconstructed for the classical "perfect". IIa contains some recently
identified paradigms like ablauting o-presents (like *k^onk-, *molh2- or
*h1org^H-), while those in IIb are the old "thematic" verbs (*bHere-, etc.). The
reconstructed singular endings of Class II are *-h2ai, *-th2ai and *-ei in the
present tense (with slight modifications in the thematic subclass; and the
middle voice would be something like *-h2or, *-th2or, *-or). The plural
endings are more controversial, but 3pl. *-enti or *-onti was perhaps common to
all conjugations in the active voice.
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, December 20, 2000 10:48 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] The sexual life of the IEs
I assumed that it was conjugated with the [*-mi, *-si,
*-ti] set just
because I had never seen *-ei mentioned in any books (even
though I
suspected it existed). Oh joy of joys! Teehee! That's one less
thing to
explain in PreIE grammar then! So what you're saying is that the
stative
endings can also terminate in the indicative *-i?! Is the singular
conjugated as *-xoi, *-toi, *-ei? Tell me 'tis true. Oh happiness, joy,
happiness upon happinesses... whoa, I'm starting to get a happiness
migraine, gotta sit down... :)
- gLeN