On Fri, 21 May 2004 00:31:01 +0200, Miguel Carrasquer
<
mcv@...> wrote:
>The second type, *yug-óm, *tud-é-ti, in order to be in
>origin identical to the regular type, must then also have
>had a long root vowel. My ablaut rules provide for that.
>Long *i: or *u: also get shortened in pretonic position, but
>unlike *a: > *a, they do not attract the accent. The
>regular development is:
>
>a-root:
>*h1a:k^w-á- > *h1ék^w-o-
>*bha:uH-á- > *bhéuH-e-
>
>i/u-root:
>*yu:g-á- > *yug-ó-
>*ti:wd-á- > *tud-é-
>
>(*yu:g- and *ti:wd- are only suggestions: the real shape of
>the roots may just as well have been *i:wg- or *tu:d-).
>
>This immediately explains why the type with e-grade is more
>frequent than the type with zero grade: the proto-language
>initially had much more roots with a-vocalism than with i-
>or u-vocalism.
This raises an interesting question with regards to verbal
morphology. Athematic present tense formations with short
root vowel can be expected to show the Ablaut sg. *é / pl.
*0, whether that vowel was **a, **i or **u.
For the less common type with long root vowel, I would
expect the following ablaut variations:
sg. pl./middle
1 **a: ó é
2 **u: ó 0-'
3 **i: é: 0-'
Jasanoff offers plenty of evidence for type 1 (c.q. type 2).
Types 2 and 3 are the Narten presents. These are usually
reconstructed with Ablaut *e: ~ *e, but the vast majority of
them actually have Vedic ablaut /a:/ (from */e:/ or */o/) ~
/0/ (e.g. Narten's classical example stu: staumi, stauti,
pl. stumási, stuvánti, middle stu-), or could have Ablaut
/a:/ ~ /a/ from */o/ ~ */e/ [= type 1 above] (LIV's dhá:vati
~ dhávate:, etc., and certainly the k- forms listed under 3.
*kerH- and *kWek^-). The only good example of apparent /e:/
~ /e/ Ablaut listed in LIV is *tetk^- (Ved. ta:s.t.i,
táks.ati).
So I would suggest that Jasanoff's o-grade presents (most of
them classified in LIV as reduplicating(!) o-grade presents)
and the Narten presents are really different manifestations
of the same thing. The zero grade in forms like stuvánti is
no problem anymore: it's precisely what we would expect.
It's quite likely then that Jasanoff is right and all these
verbs with lengthened grade root vocalism were conjugated
according to the PIE *h2e-conjugation. That would motivate,
if not explain, the long vowel [*o/*e:] (which is of course
also characteristic of the perfect).
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...