Re: [tied] Re: PIE conjugations

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

From: Miguel Carrasquer Vidal

To: cybalist@egroups.com

Sent: Thursday, January 11, 2001 1:43 AM

Subject: Re: [tied] Re: PIE conjugations

> The argument rests entirely on the transfer of *-s to the 2nd p. sg. form (*-ei > -eis), and the subsequent analogy -es / -eis :: -e / -XXX.  The original shape of the 3sg. form is irrelevant to the argument (which is not mine, BTW: one can find it in e.g. Szemerényi and I suppose in not a few others).

I'm sceptical, no matter who supports it. In athematic verbs we also have analogical -s in the 2sg. (phe:is < *pha:-i < *bHa:-si, Homeric eis for ei ~ essi 'thou art') but no restructuring in the 3sg. (tithe:si ~ tithe:ti). It doesn't seem as if the 2sg. pattern had automatically been generalised.

 

> Of course it's conjectural, but at least it's a real possibility, unlike deriving Grk. -eis from something like *-eth2a(i).

 

Far be it from me to derive anything in this manner. That would be pure folly :). I doubt if *-e-th2a-i should be reconstructed at all (except possibly -- here I agree -- in a certain kind of subjunctive). *-th2a- itself is reconstructed for lack of a better idea how to connect Gk. -tha as in oistha with Skt. -tha as in vettha. The original shape of the 2sg. ending in the thematic conjugation is an open question as far as I'm concerned.

 

>> As for the 1sg. *-o:, the chain *-omwi > *-omwu > *-owu > *-o:u > *-o: is hardly preferable to *-o-h2, though the latter has its problems too. Even if one accepts your labialised /mw/ and the vowel modification it causes for the sake of the argument, the unmotivated loss of the nasal (who would have wished to remove the most transparent element of a 1sg. ending?) and the lack of tangible support for *-o:u make this derivation look somewhat fanciful.

>The Luwians (where we have 1sg. present -(a)wi).  [On second thoughts, and in view of Luwian, I'd like to rephrase the chain to: *-omwi > *-owi > *-owu > *-o:u > *-o:].

>The total loss of *-u after *-o: is a problem, though not as great as losing an *-i in most of the alternative theories.  At least the *-o(:) itself is naturally explained, not analogical as in *-oh2[i]. I used to be a strong believer in some kind of laryngeal in the 1sg. thematic, but I've lost the faith completely: the *o is wrong, the loss of *i is inexplicable, and the *h2 is undemonstrable.  The only other possibility I can think of besides the one I gave (*-omwi > *-o:[w]) is a derivation from the thematic conjunctive (**-o-om), where you get the *o: for free, and the *i was never there.  But you have to lose the nasal, which is much easier to do (and attested in Luwian!) within my preferred theory.  Since the thematic conjunctive is attested as *-o: everywhere, here too it seems preferrable to posit original **-o-omw (> *-o:[w]) to account for that.

 

Losing the *i is no problem in your approach? Do you mean *-wi > *-wu is quite regular? Your interpretation of Luw. -wi is far-fetched. You derive it from *-mwi via phonetic development, but this depends crucially on accepting your "rounded labials", which few if any people would be prepared to do at present: extraordinary phonemes require extraordinarily good justification. Proto-Anatolian would have to have *-mwi, otherwise Hittite -mi would not be derivable. Where else can we see Hit. -m- : Luw. -w-? A more down-to-earth alternative is the replacement of *-mi by Luw -wi motivated by the generalisation of *-wani in the 1pl. Finally, if I may quote you,

 

"[*-th2a-] might explain the Tocharian 2sg. ending in *-t, but that is not an exclusively thematic form, which makes it less relevant to the discussion of the PIE thematic present."

The same holds a fortiori with regard to Luwian -wi, since (1) Luwian has no other known 1sg. present ending, (2) the traditional thematic conjugation is essentially a "non-Anatolian" concept.

 

Piotr