--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "P&G" <petegray@...> wrote:
> >The sigmatic aorist is the regular aorist of verbs forming an sk-
present.
>
> This claim has been made several times. It may be true of an
individual
> language, but it is certainly not true of PIE.
> A search of Rix's indices showed [...]
You are putting your finger on a sore spot in LIV which appears to
be biased in some points.
In the presentation I made of the matter in Zürich in 1992 (a
subordinate issue in a discussion of the IE s/t alternation,
published in the IX Fachtagung der Idg.Gs., 1994) I cited the
following: Ved. pr.ccháti/ápra:ks.am, yácchati/áya:m.sam,
yúcchati/áyaus.am, Gk. ge:rásko:/egé:ra:, Lat. pasco/Hitt. pahs-,
Gk. gignó:sko:/Hitt. ganes-, Ved. iccháti/Lith. ies^kóti, and the
stative pair Lat. -e:sco:/Hitt. -esmi. I added a footnote on Welsh
gwisgo 'dress' (-e:- from s-aor. combined with -sk-); I can now add
a reference to a squib of my own on Toch.B prs. stem /pra:ska:-
/ 'fear' which must be umlaut of *pre:k-s- + -sk- + /-a:-/, again
with long /e:/ from the s-aorist combined with an sk-marker of the
present.
Let see what does LIV with this:
*pr.k^-sk^é-ti/*pré:k^-s-t is acknowledged;
*yem-: Ved. s-aor. áya:m.sam is Neubildung; sk-prs. is accepted;
*yew-2 : Ved. yaus. is Neubildung; sk-prs. accepted;
*g^erH2- : s-aor. Ved. ja:ris.ur/Gk. egé:ra: and sk-prs. Av. a-
zar&san.t- are Neubildungen;
*peH2y- : Hitt. pahs- and Sl. pas-e/o- are put down as
desideratives; while sk-prs. is accepted;
*g^neH3- : both sk-prs. and s-aor. are accepted;
*H2eys- : both sk-prs. and s-aor. are accepted;
*wes-1 : s-aor. is accepted, sk-prs. in Toch. called Neubildung;
*preK- 'fear' : sk-prs. accepted, no mention of aorist.
So out of the nine I have mentioned LIV accepts three. But its
policy with regard to Neubildungen is erratic; or perhaps it is in
reality honorific: If Narten has suggested that a Rigvedic form is
secondary, that is accepted without comment; the same goes for
Klingenschmitt's treatment of Armenian and Albanian, and mostly of
Hackstein's treatment of Tocharian. There are only six Anatolian
Neubildungen in the volume. While I have the deepest admiration for
the splendid work laid down in LIV, which is an absolutely
indispensable tool now, I do not think the book has seen its final
edition.
The trouble with sk-present and s-aorist is that both have become
productive. The s-aorist was the default aorist which moved in if
the old root aorist fell out of use, e.g. in consequence of the use
of its subjunctive as a present stem. The sk-present was productive
as an inchoative, and in its reduplicated form as an iterative
(probably of renewed beginning, denoting something
like 'gradually'). But where the stem in sk has become the unmarked
present we find it combined with an s-aorist so often that it makes
a strong impression on me. If others do not get the same impression,
it is their privilege to say so, and of course it may be an illusory
impression. I think we see the old independent function of the s-
aorist and the sk-present in conjunction with the stative morpheme.
The aorist denotes the action that creates a new situation. That
makes the s-aorist well suited as the default aorist if the -s-
emphasizes the inchoative shade of the new turn of events.
You say the s/sk theory has been put forth many times before. Could
you give a reference to where I can read about it?
Jens