Re: Active / Stative

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:

> >> It's possible that the Skt. 1sg. middle past ending -i
> >> directly reflects this, as well as the Hittite 1sg.
> >> hi-conjugation preterite -hun (< *-h2-m., not *-h2a-m).
> >
> >Possible, yes, but not very likely. Even for Sanskrit it can be
> >shown that the full-grade ending is -a, while -i is a zero-grade
> >alternant (1sg opt. root-aor. as'i:ya : 1sg mid. s-aor. á-mam.s-

i),

>
> But why zero grade? A Sanskrit innovation?

No, that't the original accent opposition: *H2n.k^-iH1-H2á
(with /i:/ from consonant-initial endings), *mén-s-&2.

>
> >and for -hun we have a better explanation as a replacement of -ha

as

> >preserved in Luvian by adjustment to the corresponding ending -un

of

> >the mi-conjugation.
>
> If Sankrit can have a zero grade -&2, so can (pre-)Hittite.
> I just don't see the need to replace a perfectly sensible
> ending *-h2a (next to 2sg. *-th2a).

"Need" is a strong word. Adjustment of one paradigm to another would
be impetus enough.

> On the other hand, if
> the ending was *-h2, alternating with -a (*-&2), I can see
> why it would have been analogically replaced with -hun.

But the Luvian form is -ha, and Indo-Iranian -a forms position.

> >
> >> As to the nature of the *-e, my best guess is that it is
> >> indeed the thematic vowel. Assuming the same element was
> >> added both to the perfect and the middle, we see that the
> >> middle forms have *o before *-r, *-m, *-i (*-t-o-r,
> >> *-dhw-o-m, *-nt-o-i), which is consistent with an
> >> interpretation as the thematic vowel. Two problems remain:
> >> the fact that the vowel appears as *a after *h2 (e.g.
> >> *-h2ai), and the fact that in some middle forms, the vowel
> >> appears as *-o when nothing follows. I would suggest that
> >> the first phenomenon is regular: a thematic vowel coloured
> >> by *h2 does not yield *o before a voiced segment (we see the
> >> same in archaic forms of the word "woman", such as Greek
> >> gunaik- and Armenian kanay- < *gWn.h2-a-ih2-). The second
> >> phenomenon (-o for expected -e in the middle), I would
> >> explain analogically: the (past) middles in -o were
> >> secondarily created by deleting the middle marker *-i, when
> >> that had been re-interpreted as a present marker.
> >
> >I fail to see the problem, or even the topic: The prefect endings
> >are never followed by anything voiced (or anything else), so the
> >thematic vowel is expected to behave just like the phoneme /e/

which

> >produces /a/ in connection with /H2/.
>
> Yes.
>
> >I do not see the necessity of
> >the structure you posit for 'woman', particularly I do not see a
> >thematic vowel in it by any serious standard I can think of.
>
> Well, the nom.sg. is gune:/bane: (*gWn.h2-ah2), with the
> normal a:-stem nominative ending, and a:-stems are thematic
> (their athematic counterpart are the i:-stems). We've been
> over this before.

Yes, I find it as unacceptable now as I did then.

> >Phonologically the added vowel of the perfect could well be the
> >thematic vowel, but that of the middle voice cannot.
>
> Why? As I said above, the vowel and the accent and the
> Ablaut and everything behave consistently with a thematic
> (-0-é-) paradigm.

Because it has a zero-grade alternant which is something we do not
have with the thematic vowel.

> >And none of
> >them is too well in keeping with anything else we know about the
> >thematic vowel. Basically, the vowels here concerned do not form
> >stems, so the word "thematic" must have a different meaning, and
> >then the whole point is hard to see. We do not otherwise
> >see "thematic" vowels dangling after ready-made wordforms, so

there

> >is really nothing in the grammar that helps us if we identify the
> >element with one known from the grammar.
>
> Terminology ("thematic vowel") aside, what I mean is that
> the morpheme *-e(-) has the same origin in the active
> paradigms as in the perfect/middle. The difference is
> merely one of placement. In the active we have:
>
> theme-thematic vowel-ending (e.g. *bher-e-t)
>
> In the "stative", we may have:
>
> theme-ending-"thematic vowel" (e.g. *woid-h2-e)

That is at best a possible *dissimilarity*. And none of them has
then retained the original meaning.

> >> If the *-e is the thematic vowel, it needs to be explained
> >> why in the perfect/middle system it appears _after_ the
> >> desinences, instead of _before_ them, as in the active
> >> system. The only solution I can think of requires that the
> >> thematic vowel in these forms indeed be an object marker
> >> (somehow connected to the anaphoric pronoun *i/*e-),
> >> something which is otherwise impossible to prove. It's as
> >> if in the active system, incorporation proceeded according
> >> to the model V-O-S, while in the "stative" (perfect/middle)
> >> system, incorporation followed the model V-S-O. Given the
> >> fact that the active and the stative systems are
> >> fundamentally different (e.g. in their desinences), I can
> >> see no problem with the assumption that they were formed
> >> according to very different models of agglutination
> >> (enclitic syntax).
> >
> >I completely fail to se what an object marker would be doing here.
>
> Marking a third person object, what else?

Something which the perfect really denotes. Something like "... and
still do" would be nice. It is not consistently transitive, not even
typically so. And objects are not known to be marked this way in
this particular language, so it does not really fit anything.

> Neither the perfect nor the middle have exclusively
> intransitive semantics in PIE. Generalization of
> incorporated 3rd. p. object to all forms would not be a
> surprising development.

I would indeed be surprised. You don't prove anything by playing
blasé.

> > I also fail to see the principle whereby the thematic vowel

could be

> >used to mark the object. Otherwise it expresses belonging. That
> >incidentally makes some sense: If the bare endings were passive
> >("was killed"), the extension by a morpheme of belonging would be
> >possessive ("has killed"), which comes quite close.
>
> Yes, that would be another possibility, but it would have to
> be explained better, because I don't quite get the mechanism
> you're proposing.

So it *does* matter that things are not really known to be this way.
My guess was something in the order of *yug-H2-é meaning 'I (was)
joined', i.e. with the *-é making a passive out of the verbal stem
(root aorist), opposed to *yu-yówg-H2-e meaning 'I have joined (and
am still joining)' with possessive *-e indicating belonging of
what "(was) joined" to "me". I still find the order of the elements
odd, and I cannot produce parallels for uninflected thematic stems,
or for the presumed passive *-é/zero, and I don't understand the
accent at all. In sum I do not like it much; but that does not make
poorer guesses right.

> >> [] In this
> >> analysis, we would then expect a "stative" conjunctive to
> >> show the desinences:
> >>
> >> 1. *-a-h2(a)
> >> 2. *-e-th2(a)
> >> 3. *-e-(e).
> >>
> >> It is trivial to derive a form like the Latin future (<
> >> conjunctive) in -a:m, -e:s, -e:t from such a "stative
> >> conjunctive".
> >
> >We have other explanations of the Latin endings that do not need

all

> >these speculations.
>
> Such as?

The forms in /-e:-/ are really unproblematic, for that was the form
of the subjunctive of the thematic conjugation which is what this is
expected to reflect. The 1sg -am is a bit odd, but the inherited
form would be in -o:, i.e. identical with the indicative, so a
transfer of the form -am from the subjunctive type feram is easily
motivated. It looks like the same process as when the subjunctive
has -a:- if the verbal stem has -e:- itself.

> >I also completely fail to see why the
> >subjunctive would derive from a mediopassive form.

> If the active had a subjunctive, why shouldn't the
> perfect/middle have one?

Of course it did, but you are basing the active on the mediopassive,
which really seems to be unusual and, it appears, not necessary.

Jens