Re: [tied] Re: Active / Stative

On Thu, 05 Aug 2004 23:07:13 +0000, elmeras2000
<jer@...> wrote:

>--- 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.

I don't follow. -i is *always* the 1sg. middle past ending.
It has nothing to do with the accent or the Ablaut. Why
isn't the 2sg. *á-mam.s-ti then?

>> 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

Yes, of course. I'm suggesting (tentatively) an alternation
*-h2a ~ *-h2, dating back to a time when the *-e extension
was still optional.

>> >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.

And I can only say that I find that incomprehensible.

Thematic adjectives have a paradigm with nominatives m.
*-os, n. *-om, f. *-ah2. That implies that a:-stems are
thematic. The athematic counterpart is *-ih2, the f. ending
of athematic adjectives.

It takes only one simple soundlaw to explain the shape of
the N, A sg. of the a:-stems out of the expected structure
*-e/o-ih2, and that is that *i is deleted after the stressed
thematic vowel.

The oblique forms can have columnar stress (by analogy with
the m/n thematics), or they can have mobile stress. There
is strong evidence from Sanskrit, Armenian and Slavic for
the mobile a:-stems:

columnar Grk.
N *-á-ih2 > *-á-h2 > *-a: -e:
A *-á-ih2-m > *-á-h2-m > *-a:m -e:n
V *-á-i(h2) > *-á-(h2) > *-a -a
G *-á-ih2-a:s > *-á-h2-os > *-a::s -e::s
D *-á-ih2-a(i) > *-á-h2(-i) > *-a::i -e::i
L *-á-ih2-à(i) > *-á-h2-a(i) > *-a::i
I *-á-ih2-àt > *-á-h2-ah1 > *-a:

mobile Skt.
N *-á-ih2 > *-á-h2 > *-a: -a:
A *-á-ih2-m > *-á-h2-m > *-a:m -a:m
V *-'a-i(h2) > *-o-i(h2) > *-oi -e:
G *-a-íh2-a:s > *-o-yáh2-os > *-oya::s -a:ya:s
D *-a-íh2-a(i) > *-o-yáh2(-i) > *-oya::i -a:ya:i
L *-a-ih2-á(i) > *-o-yh2-á(i) > *-oyyái
I *-a-ih2-át > *-o-yh2-áh1 > *-oyya: -aya:


I see nothing wrong with this analysis, except that for some
reason (decades of disbelieve in Brugmann's law, probably)
nobody has thought of it before me.

>> >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.

What zero grade alternant? Do you mean zero grade of the
root, or of 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.

Indeed.

>> >> 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.

The premise is that the thematic vowel in the active
paradigms (where it doesn't mark the subjunctive) _also_
marked a 3rd. person direct object. As I have already
admitted, this is not provable for the active. Still, *if*
this particular language (some stage of pre-PIE) marked the
object in this way, then I see nothing amiss with it marking
the object in the perfect/middle in a similar (but slightly
different) way.

>> 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.

You've been talking with Glen too much. Let's stick to the
factual arguments.

>> > 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.

I introduced all of this as "my best guess [would be]",
which means that I'm open to other suggestions (see my
comparison with Basque -en in another message).

>> >> [] 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.

And where does _that_ come from?


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