From: elmeras2000
Message: 32850
Date: 2004-05-21
--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:
[JER:]
> > The doctrine says that acrostatic paradigms
> >have é in their weak forms, as 3sg middle Ved. stáve 'is invoked'
as
> >opposed to a long vowel in strong forms, as 3sg act.
> >stáuti 'invokes'. This is "Narten ablaut",
[MCV:]
> Except, as I said, that's not quite the full story. The
> weak forms (pres.pl. stumási, stuvánti, and middle forms
> such as stus.e: (2sg.)) have zero grade, as expected.
The parts of the inflection that agree with the normal type (é :
zero) are simply explained as normalizations. Narten ablaut is only
preserved in archaic relics. I am not sure the form stus.é should be
brought into this, for it is a common form for the whole of the
middle voice. I once analyzed it as *stu-s-H2á-i, *stu-s-só-i, *stu-
s-ó-i yielding three homophonous forms in compliance with the three
translations I had seen of its 25 attestations. I called this a
special "prospective" category. It has been accepted by many, but I
now do not accept it myself, for the future forms it was supposed to
be allied to have turned out to have a morpheme /-H1s-/, not just /-
s-/. It is then probably just an infinitive after all, though it is
used without accent in main clauses. Still, the 2sg form could be
from a normalized present stem.
> >and there are nouns doing
> >the same, as Gk. hêpar, Avest. ya:kar& vs. Skt. yákr.t, yaknás,
Lat.
> >jecur 'liver', said to reflect *yé:kW-r(t), *yekW-n- (originally,
> >the story goes, gen. *yékW-n.-s, then *yekW-n-ós by
normalization).
> >Some nouns
>
> Almost all of them, in fact.
I do not think that is a correct assessment, but something has to be
in the majority.
> >, however, show /o/ instead of /é:/ in the strong forms.
> >The nominative to go with *dem-s definitely has an o-vowel, cf.
Arm.
> >nom.-acc.sg. tun, and 'night' has *nókWt- all over except in
Hitt.
> >nekuz which is diagnozed as a genitive, this leading to *nókWt-s,
> >gen. *nékWt-s, and the model of which one may also take the
> >alternant of 'foot' to have been originally distributed as *pó:d-
s,
> >gen. *péd-s (-> normalized gen. *ped-ós).
> >
> >I believe we can get all of this regular by positing underlying
root-
> >vowel length in the acrostatic paradigms. The 3sg act. *sté:w-ti
> >needs no further explanation if the stem was *sté:w- all along.
It
> >weak variant *stéw- may then be a reduction of *pretonic* *ste:w-
´
> >not unlike the process that led to zero-grade with short-vowel
> >roots. There is the difficulty, of course, that the accent is not
on
> >the ending, but I assume it once was. That assumption, i.e. a
> >prestage such as gen. *pe:d-ós, offers a reason for the
shortening
> >of the root vowel, and I do not think it is as bold as it might
> >look. For, when the reduction of unaccented vowels has changed
*pe:d-
> >ós to *ped-ós, it has changed structures with short vowels into
> >monosyllables, as gen. *H2ner-ós (*H2ner- 'man', Gk. ané:r) > PIE
> >*H2n.r-ós. At that stage words of normal structure had become
> >phonological monosyllables with only one full vowel.
> >The "acrostatic" type however had only shortened its long
pretonic
> >vowel to a short pretonic vowel. Now we need a rule that puts the
> >accents right. I think it's free of charge: pretonic vowels are
> >accented. That is the same as saying initial accent, accent on
the
> >first full vowel of every word. Since all pretonic short vowels
have
> >been lost, there remain only the reduced products of originally
long
> >vowels to operate on, so if "initial accent" is introduced, we
get
> >the accent right. That gives us *péd-os. One might like to leave
it
> >at that, given the Greek and Sanskrit genitive podós, padás, but
the
> >existence of genitives like *dem-s, *nékWt-s, *gWéw-s (or *gWów-
s),
> >and 3pl forms like Ved. táks.ati, s'á:sati reflecting *-nti
without
> >the vowel of the desinence /-ent/ show that the desinential
segments
> >were subsequently reduced. So we have to assume just that: the
stage
> >*péd-os was reduced to *péd-s, which is the structure seen in
some
> >archaic forms, while others adjusted the form to the normal type
> >with accented endings, so that *ped-ós is in all probability the
> >correct PIE reconstruction for this particular lexeme.
>
> Agreed so far.
Well, that's a lot!
> >The strong paradigm forms should then be based on structures with
a
> >long vowel in the root segment. But we often find an o-vowel, as
> >in 'house', 'foot' and 'night'. There are no verbs of this kind
>
> Ahem. There's plenty of them. A sample from Jasanoff pp.
> 74/75:
>
> *molh2-/*melh2-
> *bhodh(h1)-/*bhedh(h1)-
> *bhorH-/*bherH-
> *dhou-/*dheu-
> *g^hongh-/*g^hemgh-
> *ghrobh-/*ghrebh-
> *h2wos-/*h2wes-
> *sor-/*ser-
> *h2wog-s-/*h2weg-s-
> *gWol-s-/*gWel-s-
I do not accept that at all. These are intensives that used to be
reduplicated. The working of Hirt's law in the Balto-Slavic examples
has showed that, and I told the world, but it was too complicated
for it. I have had complaints. I might be swayed if it did not mean
sacrificing all prospects of having rules in this. My conclusion is
that there were no IE verbs or verbal categories alternating ó/é. I
wouldn't know where to find them, and I do know what to think of the
examples that have been proposed which I consider wrong.
> >, so it looks like a thing that could arise only in nouns. There
are no
> >neuter root-nouns like this either
>
> What does it matter whether they are root nouns or not? The
> type is common enough in neuters (e.g. *wód-r *wéd-n-
> "water").
>
> >(not many of any other kind,
> >however, I practically know only 'heart', but that's a footnote),
so
> >I would suggest that the o-timbre has been caused by the
nominative
> >lengthening. If we expect the product of *pé:d-s in the
nominative
> >and find *pó:d-s, is it then not the most sensible thing to ask
if
> >*pó:d-s could be the product of *pe:d-s (*pé:d-z if we need a
> >special sibilant)? I guess it is, and the necessary assumption is
> >quite easy: *pé:d-s underwent lengthening, and the additional
length
> >in the already-long vowel caused it to assume o-timbre.
>
> This is of course a sub-optimal explanation, as it fails to
> explain the other strong case forms, such as the accusative.
>
> My suggestion is to accept the facts as they are: /ó/ is the
> regular reflex of a pre-PIE lengthened vowel **/a:/.
The long vowel corresponding to e/ is /e:/. That cannot just be
overlooked.
On 'water', which I deliberately left out because it could not be
accomodated in the sentence, I repeat this:
Since I cannot accept simple short /ó/ as the direct manifestation
of the vowel of which /é/ is the reduced form, I need to find a way
to get it to be a special form of the /é:/ which some stems
(like 'liver') present: I can do that in the collective:
We all agree that the "nominative lengthening" was also produced by
the *-H2 marking the collective. I posit the underlying stem
of 'water' as *wé:d-r- (alternating with *wé:d-n-, which is not the
issue right now). I therefore take the collective to have been *wé:d-
r-H2, and that can explain it all, I submit: Lengthening gave
*wé::drH2 > *wó:(:)drH2, shortening like in the nominatives gave
*wódrH2 'waters'. I now suggest that *wód-r is a backformation from
the collective made by subtraction of the collective marker; the two
forms must have meant practically the same thing. Some cases kept
the old form, thus *yé:kW-r. - If the root ended in two consonants,
the suffix wa not -r, but -er: *H1ésH2-er > *H1ésH2-r 'blood', Hitt.
eshar, Gk. éar; the collective then was *H1ésH2-er-H2 > *H1ésH2-or-
H2 > *H1ésH2-o:r, retained in Toch. ysa:r. - The latter type was
used in normalizations, thus Hitt. collective wida:r from *wédo:r
modelled on the type *H1ésH2-o:r. I believe everything has been
assigned a place without contradition in this puzzle. I don't see
how I could do otherwise without causing problems somewhere when I
make a different choice.
>
> The few remaining irregularities can easily be explained by
> the fact that pre-PIE had two (x2) additional vowels besides
> *a(:), namely *i(:) and *u(:), as typologically required in
> any case.
That is not a "fact", and it is not what we see.
Jens