I read this book whose title I refuse to reveal under threat of death
(because I forgot it) that basically stated that Indo-European was an SOV
language in transition to becoming an SVO one at the time of dispersal.
IE doesn't seem to have the typical order that an SOV language should have
(such as the placement of the negative before the verb, and relative
particles placed before the clause).
So lately, I was thinking about all that and how it would have slowly
evolved from a "true SOV" into the language it became. I then had an
excellent stroke of genius about the origin of the subjunctive during my
thought experiment that also connected it with the thematic genitive *-syo,
the order of early relative clauses and the use of bare-stem verbs unmarked
for person and tense.
Now, the only thing is that for my new theory to work, I must reconstruct
the subjunctive with a thematic suffix with *-h-: *gHwen-ho-m "slay" and
*bHer-e-ho-m "carry".
Does anyone object?
- gLeN
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