On Mon, 16 Feb 2004 01:36:48 +0000, elmeras2000 <
jer@...> wrote:
>I find it strange that the IE reflexive is
>not addressed in Greenberg's IE and its closest Relatives, nor, as
>far as I can see, in Bomhard/Kerns. It may have been treated
>elsewhere, there is a lot of literature about Nostratic I have not
>seen. I am beginning to wonder if one should really be sure that IE
>*se is the same as the 3rd person pronoun of Uralic. The Uralic 3rd
>person possessive is structured quite differently from the 1st and
>2nd person. In Eskimo too, the 3rd person has a structure all its
>own, but the reflexive is completely parallel with the 1st and 2nd
>person, much as IE *emó-, *tewó-, *sewó- are different from *(H1)
>ésyo, but quite like each other. To an amateur like me that still
>looks like a good indication that the reflexive function is the
>original one with the IE refl.pron.
By the same token, that can be taken as evidence that the original function
was third person, matching the formal parallelism to the functional one (1,
2, 3 belong together more than 1, 2, R).
A brief review of the evidence:
Afro-Asiatic
Hausa
3masc. p.p. <shi:>, verbal prefix <shi>, <sa>, ...
3pl. p.p. <su:>, verbal prefix <su>, <sun>, ...
Berber
3masc. suffix -s
3pl. suffix -s&n
Egyptian
3masc. suffix -f < *-su, p.p. (old) swt, (new) nt-f
3fem. suffix -s < *-si, p.p. (old) stt, (new) nt-s
3pl. suffix -sn, p.p. nt-sn
3su. suffix -snj, p.p. nt-snj
Cushitic (Beja)
3masc. suffix -s
3pl. suffix -s-na
Semitic
3masc. p.p. Akk. s^u:, Arab. *s^uwa > huwa
3fem. p.p. Akk s^i:, Arab. *s^iya > hiya
pl.masc. Akk. s^unu, Arab. *s^unu > hum(ma)
pl.fem. Akk. s^ina, Arab. *s^ina > hin
Kartvelian
There is only the 3sg. (present/conjunctive) 3sg. marker -s (common to
Georgian/Zan and Svan).
Altaic
The Turkic 3rd. person possessive is *-sI after vowels, *-I after
consonants. The third person imperative ending is *-sin.
Indo-European
We have discussed my proposal 3sg. *-s, 3pl. *-r-s, of which I'm not quite
sure whether it goes back to the 3rd. person pronoun **su, or to the
demonstrative *so.
The reflexive pronoun *swe can formally be equated to the 1st and 2nd
person pronouns (*m[w]e, *twe). Additionally, it is perhaps worth noting
that in Hittite /s/ only occurs in 3rd. person function (possessive -sis,
n. -sit). The Anatolian reflexive is the unrelated *-ti(a) (Hitt. -za,
Luw. -ti).
Uralic
As Jens mentioned, the third person /s/-morpheme has a different structure
in Uralic than the 1/2 person morphemes. The difference as such only
exists in the singular (the 3rd. person dual and plural are generally
similar to the 1/2 person du. and pl., abstraction made of the accompanying
plural morpheme). Not all Uralic languages show the pattern, but enough to
think it goes back to Proto-Uralic. We have:
Finn.
1. mi-nä
2. si-nä
3. hä-n (*sa-n)
The Baltic Finnic possessive is reconstructed as:
1. *-mi
2. *-ti ~ -di
3. *-sen ~ *-zen
The other possessive (and verbal transitive) suffixes showing the
difference are:
Mari Mordvin Mansi Magyar PSamoyed
1 -m 1. -m 1. -m 1. -m 1. *-m&
2 -t 2. -t 2. -n 2. -d 2. *-r&
3 -s^&/-z^& 3. -zo, -zE 3. -t& 3. -0 < *-sa 3. *-ta
The third person suffixes seem to go back to *-sa (*-za), with a different
vowel than the one in 1/2 sg. *-mi, *-ti (*-di). Another possibility is
that perhaps the 3rd. person suffixes were agglutinated later than the 1/2
suffixes. This is supported by the Samoyed forms with plural possessum
(object), which are:
1. *-j-n&
2. *-j-t&
3. *-j-ta
If we assume the plural possessum/object was in the accusative case **-ti
(> Samoyed -j) (vs. nom. **-tu > Samoyed -t), and the 1/2 suffixes were
agglutinated early, we would have:
1. **-t(i)-mV > *-tm& > *-(n)n&
2. **-t(i)-dV > *-td& > *-t&
3. **-ti > *-j
(a 3rd. person possessor could simply have been rendered as a noun in the
genitive, without the use of a pronoun).
Agglutination of the 3rd. person possessive *sa (> Samoyed *ta) now results
in:
1. *-n&
2. *-t&
3. *-j-ta
Analogical extension of the *-j- results in the Samoyed paradigm.
Hungarian did something similar (pl. possessum 1. -i-m, 2. -i-d, 3.
*-i-sa). In Finnic, on the other hand, 1st. person -n- was analogically
extended, giving pl. possessum forms:
1. *-n(n)&
2. *-nt&
3. *-nsa
As to the plural forms, the two original Proto-Uralic patterns seem to have
been:
stative/intransitive: possessive/transitive:
1. *-t-m&-k 1. *-m&-t
2. *-t-t&-k 2. *-t&-t
3. *-t 3. *-s&-n
Some languages generalized *-k (Hungarian), some *-t (Nenets), verbal
paradigms behave differently from possessives, etc.
Eskimo-Aleut
In Uwe Seefloth's original theory, the Eskimo facts are interpreted
similarly to the Samoyed situation. We have (Yupik):
stative/ trans./poss. trans./poss.
intrans. sg.poss./obj. pl.poss./obj.
1 -Na -ka -nka
2 -ten -n -ten
3 -(q) -a -i
pl.
1 -kut -pu-t -(p)pu-t
2 -ci -ci -(c)ci
3 -t -a-t -i-t
The idea is that 3sgxpl -i comes from *-i-a < **-i-sa (sort of like
Hungarian), and that the sg.xpl. paradigm was once something like:
1. *-d-m > *-n > -n+ka
2. *-d-(&)t > *-ten > -ten
3. *-j-sa > *-ia > -i,
quite like the (pre-)Proto-Samoyed paradigm.
The weak point is that little lexical evidence exists for an equation
Uralic /s/ ~ Eskimo zero. Jens suggested that the cognate of Uralic *sa
rather was the Eskimo reflexive pronoun -c- (in final position *-ñ > -ni).
I don't remember now if lexical evidence was offered for Uralic -s- ~
Eskimo -c-.
The only grammatical evidence I'm aware of, Eskimo 2pl. -ci, rather
suggests to me that Eskimo /c/ somehow reflects 2nd. person *-t, at least
in the special circumstances of the 2pl. ending, where we would expect
something like instransitive *-d-t-k (plural - 2nd person - stative *k),
transitive sg.obj. *-t-d (2nd person - plural), transitive pl. obj.
*-dj-t-d (plural oblique - 2nd person - plural), which all three merged as
-ci. In any case, I don't see an /s/ there.
If the Eskimo reflexive is from *-ti or something similar, it bears a
striking resemblance to the Anatolian reflexive *-ti(a).
I'm not sure if there are other similar reflexives in the Nostratic
languages.
The Kartvelian "reflexive" is Geo. tav, PK *s^taw (or *tyaw, or *htaw,
there is no consensus about the exact nature of the correspondences GZ /t/
~ Svan /s^t/), literally "head" [incidentally, the Basque reflexive is made
in the same way, with the noun <buru> "head"].
Perhaps Etruscan had a similar reflexive pronoun, judging by TLE 619:
cehen suthi hinthiu _thues'_ sians' etve thaure lautnes'cle caresri aules'
larthial precathuras'i
"this subterranean tomb for _their_ father ETVE in the family grave was
built by Aule and Larth Precu." This is usually translated as "this
subterranean tomb for (their) first father ... ", with <thues'> interpreted
as a form of <thu> "1", which IMHO doesn't make much sense.
But it really would be too far-fetched, for now, to claim any connection
between PK *tyaw [?] "head, self", Etr. thu(a) "suus" [?], perhaps also
Sumerian sag~ (if from *saw) "head", and the Anatolian and Eskimo
reflexives.
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...