Re: [tied] Re: Bader's article on *-os(y)o

On Fri, 21 May 2004 23:01:03 +0000, elmeras2000
<jer@...> wrote:

>> As far as
>> I'm concerned, the Ablaut of this verb (and others like it)
>> is basically */e:u/ ~ */u/.
>
>That does not change things. The middle voice has steûtai in Greek
>and stáve in Vedic, the middle participle is Vedic stáv:ana-, and
>the active participle is stauuas in Avestan; also the present
>sta:uti is Avestan, in competition with staoimi. The Narten ablaut
>has been found in too many relics to be chanted back into the
>ground, as some Leiden colleagues are doing now. It's a funny
>display of lack of good will: The South German gang did not like
>Winter's Law, because they had Narten, now Leiden does not like
>Narten, because they want to vindicate Winter. I believe both are
>facts.

Well, so do I. I'm just trying to clean up some of the
remaining problems (which both Winter and Narten undeniably
have). A solution with Ablaut /e:/ ~ /0/ (besides /o/ ~ /e/
and /o/ ~ /0/) just fits the facts better than a solution
with /e:/ ~ /e/ ablaut.

>I am not fighting for this particular example, but we would need
>more than just your word to accept /i:/ as the underlying vocalism.
>Especially we need to know why pretonic /i:w/ could not produce *ew.

Because assuming that it didn't (and that underlying /u:/
also didn't) has solved more problems for me than it has
created. I now have an elegant solution for /e:/ ~ /0/ and
/o/ ~ /0/ ablaut in nouns (*k^é:r(d), *k^r.dés, *pé:r(r),
*pr.nés; *póntoh2s, *pn.th2ós), an explanation for the zero
grade in the plural of Narten presents, possibly also an
explanation for *tudéti/*yugóm thematics, etc. Yes, there
are a handful of forms where I'd wish there was a
possibility that pretonic *i: could give *(y)é (like *a:
gives *é), such as Ved. stava:ná- (stáva:na-), or *yekWnós
(*yékWnos) (Ved. yaknás), and maybe there is some special
set of circumstances that makes such a development possible
in a limited number of cases. I haven't discovered the
soundlaw yet, so until I do, I cannot accept that pretonic
/i:/ gives /e/, because normally, it doesn't.

>> >> *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.
>>
>> I can only repeat after Jasanoff: "[] it is simply not
>> credible that an inherited present *mí-m(o)lh2- or
>> *mé-m(o)lh2- [or *mél-molh2 --mcv] would have lost its
>> reduplication across the length and breadth of the IE family
>> -- including specifically Anatolian, where reduplication is
>> in general extremely well preserved." (with a footnote to
>> the effect that Hittite retains the reduplicated noun
>> <memal> "groats").
>
>The intensive *was* lost as a category in all branches except Indo-
>Iranian, why is that credible? And in IIr. it *is* reduplicated. The
>core of the matter is the controversy of the basis of the hi-
>conjugation which just will never end. I think it is simple: The hi-
>conjugation continues the perfect and is made up of all verbal
>lexemes that preserved the IE perfect, if only (originally) as a
>preterite, AND all the many other verbs whose vocalism was also -o-
>or so close to -o- that they were given the same inflection as the
>descendant of the perfect. The second part is often forgotten in
>accounts, in which case the account loses all credibility.

I've always felt that account to be completely backwards.
After reading Jasanoff, I'm surer than ever. There is no
way that the Hittite hi-conjugation could have evolved out
of the perfect. I can't motivate it in a few lines here
better than Jasanoff has in 200 pages, so I'll leave it at
that.

>> >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.
>>
>> Well, you don't need Hirt's law to retract the accent in a
>> heavy verbal root with acrostatic Ablaut /ó/ ~ /é/.
>
>I do. It's the behaviour of the infinitive that is at stake here.

I don't see why the infinitive (or rather its pre-form)
should have been exempt from the initial accent rule. An
end-stressed form *molh2-téi would have given *mélh2-t(e)i
regularly (cf. *pod-, dat. *ped-(e)i), which quite naturally
would have been given the vocalism of the present tense,
resulting in *mólh2tei > málti, as attested.


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