Sorry for not addressing this sooner...
Piotr:
>Erh, the adjectives were formed in PIE, so you'd have to assume
>that the PIE verbs originally meant "have". But that's 100% imaginary.
>I see no tangible evidence in favour of such a proposal.
Actually, not quite. I recognize that the verb "to be" is redundant
in equational sentences and there are other languages like Arabic
that do just fine without a verb. I reconstruct this lack of "to be"
for Mid IE as well. However, if the use of *-went- is any suggestion,
it also didn't normally use a verb like *kap- "to have" either, which
is a similar situation to Turkish, if I recall. Or for that matter, Arabic
yet again.
So, in the absence of both "be" or "have" in unmarked equational,
descriptive or possessive sentences, the exact original meaning of
*es- might be subject to question. Particularily so with the Semitic
correspondance. In Akkadian /is^u:/ can mean both "have" (possessive)
and "there is" (descriptive). Its secondary use to declare the
general existence of things is the key here.
Mid IE would have borrowed the Semitic verb to be used more as
"there is" (something like in Mandarin /you ren/ "there are people"
as opposed to /shi ren/ "it's a person"). Coincidentally /you/ also
means "to have". Funny enough, a lot of languages use "have" to
declare the existence of something, even French /il y a/ "there is"
lit."it has there" < /avoir/ "have". It's as if to state someone's or
something's "possession of existence".
So in effect, it's along the lines of the following fully plausible
interrelationship:
"to have" == "there has/is" == "is"
An original meaning of "have" or "there is" can explain the relationship
of *es- and *wes- more strongly, and both there uses in "good"
even better. While it might be true that it's good to "be", it's all the
better to "have". The source of *?sont- "true" may be just as easily
from "be" as from "have"/"there exists" => "something that exists
in general (as a fact)".
Of course, I've shown the plausibility of the idea but no doubt I
need to "prove" that IE had no "be" at one time. Might I point out
that it's hard to prove a negative? Alright, well first of all, aside from
the alternation of accent, which is explained succinctly by Mid IE
Penultimate Accent, we only end up with the following _regular_
paradigm:
*�s-em *�s-mes
*�s-es *�s-te
*es *es-�ne
I don't see a reason to introduce more complexity into the
paradigm... so why is it so regular? Probably because it was
borrowed or used for another purpose other than the normally
conjugationally corrupt verb "to be" at this stage.
The verb also is athematic and that got me wondering for
a while. Thematic vowels are typical of duratives (like *wegH-o:),
whereas aorists (like *dehW-m) or perfects (*stestox-xa) seem
most often athematic. So it seems reasonable to conclude that
*es-, being by definition stative and athematic, is by no means
a true durative. Most likely it was an aorist once. However, it's
clear that the aorist and durative endings are one and the same
anyways, being only a matter of thematic vowel (and indicative
which came later).
In fact, the underlying system clearly seems to be an active-stative
system where the *m-endings were used for objective verbs
(durative-aorist) and the *x-endings were for subjective verbs
(perfect-stative).
SUBJECTIVE OBJECTIVE
ACTIVE perfect durative
STATIVE stative aorist
The thematic vowel specifically marked the active objective
(durative) but not the aorist, perfect or stative. I accept
now that the *-e- derives from an infixed deictic after
much resistence, as has been theorized previously by others.
So in all, the endingless athematic MIE 3ps *es suggests that
it was once aorist (objective stative). However this in itself
doesn't smash the "be" scenario since both "there is"/"have"
and "be" can be thought of as belonging to the same
category that described beginningless states, ones not
clearly caused by a previous action as with perfects.
But I don't have to prove that *es- had a strict meaning of
"have" anyways because I've already explained the natural
relationship that exists in other languages between the
verbs and what I'm suggesting is in fact that *es- meant
BOTH "be" and "have" in MIE depending on the context.
It was only used in _marked_ sentences denoting
equation, description or possession -- It wasn't necessary
to use it syntactically anymore than *ego: though.
Just thinking about something like...
*/wiros ekwoments e:st/
"The man was with horse => The man had a horse"
...shows that there was a use of *es- in denoting possession
as well as existence even in later IE. Not so clear, is it.
To add though, when comparing IE to Uralic and Altaic, THERE
IS (pardon the pun, snicker) all the more reason to doubt the
earlier EXISTENCE or POSSESSION (sorry again) of the verb
"to be" in earlier stages. While IE and Uralic agree on pronouns
and other grammatical elements, a common verb "be" is not
amongst the list.
Phew. I think that's all that's been floating in my head for
now.
= gLeN
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