Re: [tied] Got to thinkin' about word order

From: Miguel Carrasquer
Message: 21315
Date: 2003-04-27

On Sun, 27 Apr 2003 14:55:26 +0000, Glen Gordon
<glengordon01@...> wrote:

>Also, the reason why I mentioned the subjunctive having a laryngeal *-h-
>was because I'm suspecting lately that the subjunctive originates from an
>entire clause-containing sentence structure of an original form:
>
> */SUBJ, OBJ kW& SUBJclause OBJclause VERBclause, *?& VERB/
>
>The verb within the clause (VERBclause) would have been a bare stem,
>terminating only in thematic vowel if applicable. The sentence is that
>of a simple relative construction such as "Bob thinks that Jim is wrong",
>which would be translated here into the pattern:
>
> "Bob that Jim wrong being thus thinks".

This sounds rather arbitrary and it doesn't conform to any of the
relative clause patterns I'm familiar with. But then this not a
relative clause. The English pattern "Bob thinks that Jim is wrong"
can be explained as "Bob thinks thus: Jim is wrong" (thus = that).
The wh-pattern (Bob piensa _que_ Jim está equivocado) follows from: B.
thinks what?: J. is wrong. They are both historically simple
juxtaposition of two main clauses with the demonstrative or the
interrogative gradually acquiring the sense of a subordinating
particle. The construction you give above is redundant in that it has
both an interrogative *kW- and a deictic *h1e- (Bob what? Jim wrong
being. That thinks.).

Returning to relative clauses, a very common type is that of the
genitive construction, as presumably in Basque, where -(e)n (which
happens to be the G. marker) is added to the verbal clause to form a
relative construction:

emakumeari liburua eman dion gizona
woman-the-DAT book-the given has-he-it-to her-of man-the
The man of he having given it to her the book to the woman
The man who gave the book to the woman

Turkish has a similar construction, except that the genitive is
expressed using a possessive pronoun (cf. Dutch Jans boek / Jan z'n
boek: John's book, John his book). Comrie's rather silly example is:

HasanIn Sinana ver-diG-i patates-i yedim
Hasan-GEN Sinan-DAT giv-ing-his potato-ACC I-eat
I eat the potato of Hasan's giving to Sinan.
I eat the potato that Hasan gave to Sinan.

The interesting thing about the Turkish construction is that the
subject of the relative clause is in the Genitive, while the verb is a
verbal noun (-diG) followed by a possessive pronoun -i ("his"). It is
easy to imagine scenarios where constructions such as this gave rise
to either the PIE nominative *-s or the subjunctive in *-é or both.

In fact the PIE triple marking of subject (*-s or *-0) and object (*-m
or *-0) almost certainly does derive from the amalgamation of
different verbal constructions using different markers for
ergative/absolutive and/or nominative/accusative and/or
possessor/possessed. At an earlier stage, PIE may have had a system
similar to the one we see in Georgian, where subject and object are
marked differently in different verbal categories (present: Subj. -0 /
Obj. -s; aorist: Subj. -m(a) / Obj. -0; perfect: Subj. -s / Obj. -0).


=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...