--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Rob" <magwich78@...> wrote:
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "elmeras2000" <jer@...> wrote:
>
> > I have been asked that question before, Were there then no real
> > verbs? I want to warn against a pitfall here: It does not follow
> > that the prestage we come back to did not have any verbs. The
old
> > finite verbs are practically gone in Hindi, but that does not
mean
> > that Sanskrit did not have any. This may be a comparable story,
but
> > I wouldn't know.
>
> I understand what you're saying. If you are correct, do you have
any
> ideas as to what the "original" finite verb morphology was like?
I'm afraid that is asking too much. I cannot even analyze all of the
verbal stems which to me appear to be of nominal origin.
I should modify the suggestion a bit, for I really think the -(n)t-
extension was restricted to the third persons, while the first and
second persons added personal markers directly to the root (or,
verbal stem). The extensions -t-, -(e)n-, -(e)nt- (and -r ?) are in
my view phonetic variants of a single morpheme which is identical
with the individualizing, agent-noun-forming and singularizing
suffix -n(t)-. The functional range, as analyzed in depth by
Melchert and Josephson, resembles that of a definite article very
much. There seems to be still a long way to go until this is
understood satisfactorily, and I do not think the time is ripe to
make guesses about what this may have replaced.
> > "Belonging to -, characterized by -".
>
> Right. However, why is the *-o accented there, but (presumably)
not
> accented in other words such as *ekwos?
Again, I simply don't know. There is the ace-in-the-hole
labelled "contrastive accent" which is certainly a fact: Throughout
its known history, IE has created substantivized variants of
adjectives by retracting the accent (and adjectivized variants of
substantives by advancing it). That can lead to forms like Greek
thánatos 'death' which reflects accent on the sonant nasal of *-nH2-
, while the old participle thne:tós 'dead' has kept the expected
unaccented *-nH2- > -na:-. I have guessed that the IE tu-stems are
properly barytone substantival variants of the oxytone to-
participles, and that -u- is originally a weakened thematic vowel,
while later forms made no such change any more. There appear to be
many layers in this, and it is very easy to make mistakes.
Jens