Re: [tied] Re: Active / Stative

I just noticed a nifty equation while dreaming about sigmatic aorists:

noun verb adjective
*-r *-n- *-no-
*-s *-s- *-to-

What does it mean? Well, it finally dawned on me that the Lenition
Rule of IndoTyrrhenian (*-t > *-s) and the Heteroclitic Rule of MIE
(*-n > *-r) allow me to make this interesting connection between the
morphemes of the three word categories. I was considering whether the
top row, that beginning with *-r, can be said to be somehow "active"
while the bottom row would be "stative".

What tipped me off on this possibility of relationship is the conundrum
of the origins of the n-infix. After reading a scrumptious article online
on the somewhat self-evident fact that infixes overwhelmingly develop
from existing suffixes or prefixes and the specific recipe for their
development, that information combined with my ideas already established
on MIE led me to some cool ideas. It goes like this:

What if the sigmatic aorist is really older than I thought and predates
Syncope? In this way, the development of the aorist *-s- and the *n-infix
can have common but slightly different developments. Both *-s- and *-n-
would develop from MIE morphemes *-as- and *-an- respectively. As usual,
the *a would drop off by Syncope. The loss of vowel in *-as- led to the
compensatory lengthening also seen in the nominative for the same reason.
The question is: Exactly why the vowel would be lossed here while other
monosyllabic morphemes escape Syncope? And why did the *n-infix undergo
metathesis and *-s- not?

I think I got it now! I'm so daft. MIE's aspectual extensions *-as- and
*-an- alternated with the "non-extension" (either *-e- in the durative
or *-a- in the aorist). While verbs were inheirantly either durative or
aorist, they could be converted. So an aorist verb would have *-a- after
the root. The *-a- would switch with *-an- to make a durative. A natural
durative in *-e- would also do a switcheroo in the aspect marker slot
to *-as-. To give an example:

*bér-e-m (natural durative)
*bér-as-am (converted durative -> aorist)

*léikW-a-m (natural aorist)
*léikW-an-am (converted aorist -> durative)

In plural we have an equally QAR-compliant solution:

*bér-e-mes (natural durative)
*bar-as-ména (converted durative -> aorist)

*laikW-a-ména (natural aorist)
*léikW-an-mes (converted aorist -> durative)

So, we can understand that *berasam becomes *bHe:rsm after Syncope
without fuss, but damned if Syncope would explain why *leikWanam
would become *leinkWam when we expect **leikWnm!! Unless...

Unless when Syncope happened, the aspectual marker came to be viewed
as _part_ of the verb root syllable. In this way, while *ber-as-
would be squished to a single syllable *bHe:rs-, *leikW-an- would
have been compactified to a syllable **leikWn- (!!) which violates
phonotactics. Since this was unacceptable, a metathetic *leinkW-
resulted and thus was born the n-infix.

What's more interesting though is that if the above is correct (and I
think it makes damn good sense, if I do say) then there's really
nothing stopping us morphologically from supposing that the same
aspect markers could form nouns in an early form of MIE. Interestingly,
both suffixes ARE used! Except, nouns marked in *-an eventually ended
in *-ar (via MIE's Heteroclitic Rule) and then *-r (by Syncope). Those
words are numerous enough. To add, *-s is also used to form agent
nouns if I recall. This then links nominal and verbal morphemes together
nicely.

Then I thought about adjectives. Since I've determined that adjectives
were once nothing more than genitival constructs, I can see now that
*-to- and *-no-, the participle markers, arose from MIE *-at-ása and
*-an-ása. They are the genitive derivatives of nouns marked in *-as
and *-an respectively! The connection between *-to- and *-s- is possible
thanks to the Lenition Rule which also explains how plural *-es and
2ps *-s can relate regularly to the same Uralic morphemes with *t. Since
*-an- and *-as- might be reconstructed for IndoTyrrhenian too then, one
might predict that there were suffixes like *-n- and *-t- in Proto-Steppe
(perhaps governing subjectivity?).

Why it's pure genius! I'm getting overly tingly about it actually. I might
need to take a tranquilizer, so tata for now. I hope that gets people
thinking.


= gLeN