--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, mcv@... wrote:
> Jens wrote:
> > No, it's an old noun, and the subjunctive stem is an old
adjective
> > stem made from it. There are many typological parallels, I'm
told.
> > The one I know is from Eskimo.
>
> Maybe I missed it (I'm reading mail through a web interface which
I'm not accustomed to), but what is the Eskimo parallel?
You haven't missed anything, this has not been addressed here yet.
It is like this:
In independent clauses the intransitive adds personal (rudimentary)
pronouns to an old active participle, as Greenl. aki-vu-Na 'I am
answering', while the transitive uses the corresponding passive with
inergative possessive endings, as aki-vara from *-paqa < *-paR-ka 'I
answered him' (< "[he is] my answered one").
In dependent clauses the endings of the intransitive are the
*ergative* possessive endings: Greenl. aki-ga-ma 'when I answered,
because I answered', aki-gu-ma 'when I shall answer, if I answer'.
This implies not only a possessive 'my', but even a further
possessive indicating that what is mine is itself the possessor of
something: '[it is that] of my past answering', '[it is that] of my
future answering'. The question what the dependent clause moods may
be possessing can only have one answer: the main clause. The
connection between a main clause and an independent clause is thus
construed in a way that specifies the relationship of modification:
The dependent clause owns the main clause. Instead of possession in
a direct sense this may be just a relationship of belonging: The
main clause belongs to the dependent clause. A clear example: If you
say "I come if I can", your message "I come" is not *any*
unconditional "I come", but only that specific "I come" which is
dependent upon the condition expressed in the clause "if I can".
Americanists who know what they are talking about tell me that the
very same system is alive in many American Indian languages; I have
read about it in Zoque of Mexico myself.
Transferred to Indo-European this may be used as a source of
inspiration for the understanding of the use of the adjective-
forming thematic vowel to mark the subjunctive mood. The subjunctive
is a very subtle and evasive unit in IE, a fair possibility being
that it was originally the mood of dependent clauses. That is widely
what it still is in some daughter languages, but it does not explain
all. However, surprisingly little needs to have changed if one
imagines that the subjunctive was originally marked to show that the
clause it occurs in modifies another clause. Since we have good
reason to derive verbal stems from agent nouns, the use of an
adjective-forming morpheme to express its modifying effect is
completely as expected.
We leave the picture on for a moment.
Jens