Re: [tied] Stative Verbs, or Perfect Tense

On Tue, 01 Mar 2005 00:20:05 +0000, elmeras2000
<jer@...> wrote:

>
>
>--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:
>
>[JER:]
>> >Is the fact that the preterite of the hi-conjugation and the
>> >Tocharian preterite III agree in showing an -s- in the 3sg only
>> >really so important that we have to change the classical doctrine
>of
>> >the IE verbal system for that reason?
>[MCV:]
>> I think so. Especially since there is *-s in the 3pl. as
>> well.
>
>What is the evidence for a 3pl *-s? The isolated Avestan pluperfect
><ciko:it&r&s^> ?

Yes, and Vedic -ur.

>I find no s-marking in the 3pl of the hi-conjugation

Of course there is: *-er-s > *-e:r (I don't need to
duplicate the argumentation in Jasanoff p. 33).

>or in the Toch. prt. III.

-ar/-är can reflect either -r. or -r.s

>> >I do not think so. For one
>> >thing, the two languages disagree fundamentally in the middle
>voice
>> >which has a pervasive -s- in Tocharian, but nothing of the sort
>in
>> >Anatolian.
>>
>> There is no -s- in Anatolian. Tocharian has non-sigmatic
>> o-grade middles in the _intransitives_ that make an
>> "s-preterit" (Toch A. nakät, tsakät, etc.). Tocharian B has
>> sigmatized these, but with retained o-grade. The
>> _transitives_ are sigmatic in Toch. A & B. Vedic has
>> s-middles, with e-grade, everywhere. The original situation
>> is thus preserved in Anatolian.
>
>I find this incoherent. It is crucial to your argument that the
>Tocharian s-less middle forms continue the same category as those
>having -s-, only in a more original shape. But is that the truth?
>The verbs concerned all form thematic presents in Tocharian and
>elsewhere (Ved. nas'a-, daha-, paca-; reflected in the Toch.
>subjunctive, B nke-, tske-, pke-, identical with Vedic dáha:ti,
>paca:ti).

As Jasanoff notes, nketär etc. are _middle_ subjunctives, so
they can't be identical with active thematic forms.

>Now, if that represents a displaced root-aorist
>subjunctive, the original aorists of these verbs were root-aorists.
>It seems to me to be the easiest solution that these are indeed
>archaic remains, however not from a putative proto-hi-conjugation,
>but from the original root aorist. Where the root aorist was not
>retained it was replaced by the productive sigmatic aorist. Much of
>that replacement belongs to PIE already. For the verbs concerned
>Vedic reflects pervasive -s- in páks.at, adha:k, but Tocharian
>apparently restricted the renewal to the active. Now the decisive
>question is: Is the vocalism of A nakät, tsakät that of the old
>middle-voice forms, or has it copied that of the sigmatic forms
>which is the same? The partly sigmatic structure of preterite III is
>easily derived from a blend of the perfect and the s-aorist because
>IE *-o- and *-e:- merged in Tocharian.

Except for palatalization. The preterite ñakäs, ñakär has
*e:, the midle nakät, nakänt has *o. So much is clear.

>> >All we need is to find a way for a 3sg ending of the s-
>> >aorist
>>
>> There was no s-aorist.
>
>I find that view absurd - I find the s-aorist everywhere.

Not in Anatolian, Tocharian, Germanic and Armenian.

>> The s-aorist is derived from the Anatolian/Tocharian
>> s-preterite by replacing the stative endings *-h2a, *-th2a
>> by *-m, *-s from the active aorist (root aorist), and adding
>> *-t to the 3rd. person.
>
>The earlier existence of a full s-aorist in a prestage of Tocharian
>is shown by the present in *-se/o- which are identical with the
>Vedic s-aorist subjunctives (váks.at);

I don't think this was a normal subjunctive. Subjunctives
don't normally make imperatives (-sesi > -si); in Tocharian,
indicatives develop into subjunctives, but only the
se-subjunctive developed into an indicative present.
As a working hypothesis, I'm assuming these forms are
related to the precative. More later.

>these forms have retained
>their subjunctive value in Vedic, but have been refunctioned into
>presents in a telling repetition of the genesis of the thematic
>present from root-aorist subjunctives.

>>
>> We then have:
>>
>> *-m
>> *-s
>> *-s-t
>> ..
>> *-rs
>
>I do not see that. What I see is
>
>*-s-m
>*-s-s
>*-s-t
>*-s-me
>*-s-te
>*-s-nt

3pl. *-s-rs, actually. I explained below where these form
come from.

>The 1.2.3.sg have lengthened grade, and the form of the 3pl (Gk. -
>san) reflects acrostatic ablaut; so does a middle form like Ved. 1sg
>ámam.si, Avest. m&:n.ghi: 'I thought' from *mén-s-&2. I find it very
>hard to account for the last-mentioned form if the middle voice of
>the s-aorist is supposed not to have existed at the time of the
>phonetic operation of the ablaut.

The synchronic 1sg. middle ending is -i. I don't know where
it comes from.

>> which becomes by a simple analogy:
>>
>> *-s-m
>> *-s-(s)
>> *-s-t
>> ..
>> *-s-rs
>>
>> This scenario was played out once, in the core IE languages
>> that have an s-aorist.
>
>This is superfluous if the s-aorist was already there in the
>protolanguage from which they all come.

It's clear to me that it wasn't.

The process that produced the s-aorist out of an older
system where only the 3rd. person had *-s is not only well
attested in Hittite and Tocharian, but is parallelled
exactly by the development of the Old Irish t-preterite,
from 3sg. *-t.

I'm not aware of anything parallel to scenario where a
verbal (aspect) marker present in all personal forms is lost
everywhere except in the 3sg. Let one for this to have
happened twice independently.

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