Re: (fwd) [tied] Re: Active / Stative

On Fri, 13 Aug 2004, Miguel Carrasquer wrote:

> If I'm being unfair, you're being the opposite here.

I was trying to. Nice to have done somehing right.

> It's
> not a few forms: it's _all_ of them.

So it is with Gothic nom.pl. -ai. The monosyllabic forms are regular, the
rest are analogical, *all of them*.

> Apart from the
> a:-subjunctive itself, no independent evidence for -yy- >
> -y- > -0- in non-first syllable has been put forward. That
> makes the argument circular: the a:-subjunctive comes from
> -asyV- > -ayyV- > -ayV- > -aV- > -a:- because of a soundlaw
> -yy- > -y- in non-initial syllable, and the soundlaw is
> justified by the a:-subjunctive, and nothing else (all
> counterexamples being analogical).

Yes, I know that and have said so all the time.

> >The analogy to be
> >assumed if isti:us, u:ni:us are to avoid reflecting
> >undisturbed *-esyo is not strange by any standard; you tried
> >to make it look that way, but did not succeed. The fact that
> >*non-assumption* of a morphological solution that will
> >necessitate an analogy makes the analogy superfluous is a
> >pure tautology. You know that already of course,
> >I'm saying this to show others the tendentious character
> >your protests have.
> >
> >> >The derivation of Oscan -eis from
> >> >*-esyo is itself very far from being certain. If the classical
> >> >explanation
> >> >as the ending of i-stems is correct, there are no real problems.
> >>
> >> That doesn't explain G. O. eiseis, U. erer (< *esyo).
> >
> >Oh no? What's wrong with *eis-eis, repeated i-stem genitive?
> >Since -eis is also the genitive of o-stems in O-U, the stem
> >was then treated as *eiso-. What is so strange about having
> >a word whose nominative is *is (Osc. iz-ik) inflect as an
> >i-stem? Why do you not even mention this obvious analysis?
>
> Because I find it unbelievable. The stem of *is is not zero
> (it's *i-, obl. *e-, pl. *ei-), nor is there any reason to
> think that it was bizarrely reinterpreted as such in O-U.

What would be "bizarre" about segmenting a nominative *is as *i-s and have
it generate inflected forms like i-stems? What's the idea of saying the
stem is not zero? The stems of i-stems end in *-i-, not zero, just like
this. What in the world is the big difference that makes this
unbelievable and bizarre?

> Silvestri, in Ramat & Ramat, gives the following forms (I'll
> just quote the masc. sg. forms):
>
> Osc. Umbr.
> nom. izik ere, erek/erec
> acc. ionc --
> gen. eiseis, eizeis erer, irer, ererek
> dat. -- esmei, esmik
> loc. eíseí, eizeic esme
> abl. eísúd, eizuc eru(ku), eru(com)
>
> The Umbrian paradigm is quite close to the original PIE one,
> with conservation of the stem *e-sm- in the dat. and loc.
> sg. In Oscan, the whole oblique has been reshaped
> analogically after the genitive *eis- (no doubt with some
> help from the G.pl. *ey-s-o(:)m > U. eisunk), in Umbrian
> this is limited to the ablative. It's obvious that in the
> O-U genitive *eis-eis, the first *eis- is the oblique stem
> (derived from the original genitive), while the second *-eis
> is a secondarily added ending (analogical after o-stem
> -eis). If we compare *eis-eis with Latin eiu-s and PIE
> *esyo, we see that where Latin has lost the sibilant (*esy-
> > eyy-), O-U has retained it (*esy- > eys-), with metathesis
> of the two elements (as in Lepontic o-stem G. -oiso <
> *-osyo).

The ever-repeated Lepontic form is a typological parallel at best. Surely
one could also adduce some "typological parallel" for a derivation of a
sequence /eis/ from oder /eis/ *without* change.

>
> The OU o-stem G.sg. -eis itself can also be derived from
> *-osyo > *-oiso, perhaps directly (loc.sg. *-oi gives -ei,
> and posttonic vowels are sometimes deleted, as in U. húrz <
> *hortos), perhaps indirectly (*-esyo instead of *-osyo,
> analogical after *is and other pronouns; i-stem genitive
> -eis, analogical after *yo-stems with nom./acc.sg. -is <
> *-yos, im < *-yom). In any case, the o-stem G.sg. offers no
> proof that *-sy- gave *-yy- or *-y- in Osco-Umbrian, if
> anything it offers additional proof for a development *-sy-
> > *-ys-.

I grant you that an analysis of the ei- and the e- forms as part of the
same paradigm would be attractive, indeed almost as much as the
unification of the a:-subjunctives is. If we assume that /sy/ after
non-first vowel is reduced to -y- but retained after the first vowel of a
word, it can *all* be correct. Then -eis can be from *-esyo of pronouns
where it represents the form of monosyllabic stems. Latin eius, cuius can
be what has always be said about them, -i:us can reflect analogical
transfer at some point in time that is right for producing this result,
and -a:- can be from non-first *-asye- as demanded to equate it with the
Celtic a-sbj. But -eis can also still be just *-eis, and the account of
*-a:- can also just be wrong, but then we cannot combine things.

> In sum, I see no independent evidence that a verbal form
> *-&syV- should have given -a:- in Latin and Osco-Umbrian.
> Using the evidence from the Latin and O-U. genitive forms, I
> would expect *-&syV- to have yielded Latin -i:(V)- and O-U.
> *-ais(V)-.
>
> The most attractive aspect of Jørgensen's theory is of
> course that it would allow a re-unification of the Italic
> a:-subjunctive with the Old Irish a:-subjunctive, two forms
> which had been divorced by the Sihler/McCone (possibly
> others) theory linking the Old Irish a:-subjunctive (as
> *-&sV-) with the Old Irish s-subjunctive (*-s(V)-).

Nice to see that the point is at least understood. I try to keep an
unbiased mind, and I would like all attractive aspects to count for
something.

> I haven't seen Sihler, and McCone's theory only through a
> short description in Russell's "Celtic Languages", where it
> is stated that the s-subjunctive continues the old
> subjunctive of the s-aorist, while the a:-subjunctive is
> analogical after the s-aorist subjunctive of seT-roots
> (TeRH-s-e/o- > TeRase/o- > TeRa:-). This explanation does
> not justify a variant with *-sy- instead of *-s-, so I'm
> assuming Jørgensen has a different explanation for the
> sigmatic form. Something to do with the Lithuanian future?

Continental Celtic has both *-se- and *-sye-. One is from *-H1se-,
matching the Greek future type menéo: (*mén-&1s-o:), the other from
*-H1sye- matching the Vedic future káris.yati (*kWér-&1s-ye-ti). Both
types fail to vocalize the laryngeal after a stop, so we have Gk.
eleúsomai, Ved. bhósyati. Thus the laryngeal in all probability belongs to
the suffix, even if there is also a thematic subjunctive of s-aorist
giving forms like Ved. váks.ati and, with radical laryngeal, sáni-s.a-t.
The suffix *-H1s- must be the same as in the desiderative
(*kWí-kWr.-H1s-e-ti > Ved. cíki:rs.ati).

It will seem that the verbal derivative in *-H1s- formed an aorist by
itself, of which the subjunctive survives as *mén-&1s-e-ti, while the
corresponding durative was either reduplicated, leaving its original
subjunctive (*kWí-kWr.-H1s-e-ti), or formed with suffixal ye/o, leaving
its indicative in *kWér-&1s-ye-ti.

> And, since Jens gave the prototype with *h1 (*-&1se-) only,
> if I remember correctly, does that mean the laryngeal is
> also to be interpreted otherwise?
>
> How do Sihler and McCone explain the incongruence between
> a:-subjunctive and s-subjunctive in the 3sg., where Old
> Irish has -a (< *-a:(t), which must be thematic _if_ from
> *-H-se-t) vs. -0 (< *-s-t, which must be athematic)?

All Old Irish s-types inflect the same. The s-aorist used to have
athematic forms, so it will seem that the sigmatic subjunctive and future
adopted that inflection in the 2. and 3.sg., while in some of the other
forms it was the reverse. I do not think it is unattractive that the
sigmatic derivation of the a:-subjunctive makes it originally thematic.

Jens