Re: [tied] Re: 3rd. person *-s(V)

From: Miguel Carrasquer
Message: 31132
Date: 2004-02-17

On Tue, 17 Feb 2004 01:07:55 +0000, elmeras2000 <jer@...> wrote:

>>[mcv:]
>> 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).
>
>Then why is that not what we find?

It *is* what we find, as I described at length, in Afro-Asiatic, in Uralic,
in Turkic, and even in Hittite.

>I do not think I have expressed an opinion on the Uralic 3rd person.
>If I have it should not be taken seriously. But the Eskimo //c// is
>quite safe, really. It surfaces in the refl.dual and the refl.plural
>which end in -z&k/-t&k and -z&ng/-t&ng

Is that du. *-c-g and pl. *-c-k?

>The
>analysis of the personal markers as *-m, *-t, *-c is Bergsland's,

That reads as if *-c is third person.

>who just wrote that "a reasonably careful analysis" leads to that,
>only till his death he never wrote how. I can show how for *-t and *-
>c, while for the first person I can arrive only at "some labial" (*-
>k of the singular).

>> 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 intransitive *-d-t-k (plural - 2nd person - stative
>*k),
>
>No, no, the enclitic personal pronouns have their stem material
>*before* the person + number markings. They are plainly identical
>with the Aleut free pronouns reduced to their final syllables. Thus
>Esk. -ci equals Aleut txici (txicix by influence from the dual); the
>2sg ending in Esk. is variously -t&n or -k&n, matching Aleut txin.
>Seefloth sees an "intransitive" /k/ in the 1sg possessives, but that
>is only the personal marker which is /k/ here.

I was referring to what one would expect if Eskimo worked according to the
same principles as Uralic (which it may not, of course). I reconstruct
the Uralic intransitive as:

*-k
*-n
*-0

*-t-m&k
*-t-t&k
*-t,

where 2sg, *-n, judging by Turkic *-N, derives from *-nk < **-tk.

This, I have suggested, reflects the remains of a postfixed copula *kV with
Afro-Asiatic-style prefix conjugation:

PAA (Sem) PIE Ural.
1. *-V ?a-kV > *-k(V) *-ku *-h2-e *-k
2. *-V ta-kV > *-tk(V) *-ta/*-ka *-th2-e *-n(g)
3. *-V > *-0 *-0 *-0 *-0

1. *-atV ma-kV > *-tm(V)k(V) *-na: *-m-e *-mm&k
2. *-atV ta-kV > *-tt(V)k(V) *-tun/*-kun *-t-e *-tt&k
3. *-atV > *-t (*-u:) (*-r) *-t

How Eskimo-Aleut fits into this, I'm not sure yet. The Aleut forms with
-tx- are of course suggestive of PIE 2sg. *-th2. But I seem to be missing
the data on the rest of the Aleut intransitive:

Aleut Eskimo
1. -? -Na
2. -txin -ten/-ken
3. -? (-0)

1. -? -kuk
2. -txicix(?) -tek (also -kek?)
3. -? -k

1. -? -kut
2. -txici(x) -ci
3. -? -t

(Please fill in the ?'s...)

Anyway, I don't think 2pl. -ci originates in the intransitive.

>> transitive sg.obj. *-t-d (2nd person - plural),
>
>You mean "2pl possessive of a sg. noun (inergative)". Yes, that is *-
>ci (not causing gemination) from //-t-d//, lenited to *-zi after a
>vowel.
>
>> transitive pl. obj.
>> *-dj-t-d (plural oblique - 2nd person - plural),
>
>You mean "2pl possessive of a plural noun (inergative)". That is
>invariant *-ci (causing gemination, not itself lenited) from //-d-t-
>d//.
>
>> which all three merged as
>> -ci.
>
>Yes, more or less.
>
>> In any case, I don't see an /s/ there.
>
>Right, this is underlying //t//.

The question is then, does the reflexive -c- also have underlying /t/?

Or, to put it more generally, perhaps Eskimo-Aleut */c/ is always derived
from **/t/. I have seen no reason yet to think not.


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