Re: [tied] *es- "to be"

On Tue, 21 Sep 2004 17:08:18 +0400, Вадим Понарядов
<ponaryad@...> wrote:

>Just a mere hypothesis...
>
>Doesn't *es- "to be" include the same *-s- that is the suffix found in sigmatic aorist and future? Than the primary root *e- can be compared with a plenty of similar Nostratic forms, e.g. Turkic e- (e-di/ e-r-di "was" etc.), Mongolic a- (a-mui "is" etc.), Finno-Ugric *e-/*o- (Komi e-m "there is", Fin. o-n < *o-m "is").

The form *e- doesn't have the structure of a valid PIE
verbal root (while *h1es- is OK). It is possible that the
verb "to be" would have been an exception to the general
rule, but I see no compelling reasons.

What's wrong with *h1es-/*h1e:s- "to sit", with semantic
development as in Spanish <ser> "to be" < Lat. sedere "to
sit"?


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