From: elmeras2000
Message: 36548
Date: 2005-03-02
--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:
[JER:]
> >Sure, it was an *-s that lengthened the vowel
> >of Hitt. hasterz 'star' from *H2sté:r (+ added -s),
>
> I fail to see the relevance. The -s in the Hittite word is
> secondary (there's also haste:r "star"),
I was making a concession, granting you that the *-e:- of IE
*H2sté:r does reflect the working of an earlier nominative *-s
(which has been restored in Hitt., a matter without relevance). But
if you now say that ...
> the /e:/ was long
> to begin with, and stressed /e/ would have given /e:/ in any
> case, whether -s followed or not, and whether it was
> originally long or not.
... then I do not see that you need an earlier *-s to get the Hitt.
3pl.prt in -er. Aren't you saying that stress suffices?
> >but I do not find room
> >for an *-s in either ker 'heart' or per 'house' which are neuters.
>
> Yes, there's no -s there. Again I fail to see the
> relevance.
It was just meant to show that an original *-s is not needed to
produce a Hittite form ending in /-er/.
> >There
> >is also the problem that, if *-e:r is from older *-er-s, one
would expect
> >the unaccented variant to be *-o:r.
>
> I wouldn't. I'd expect the unaccented variant of *-ént to
> be *-n.t, and the unaccented variant of *-érs to be *-r.s,
> which is exactly what we find.
You could be right there. I have great trouble understanding the
nom.sg. of the active particple in *-n.t from reduplicated or
acrostatic presents. Since the perfect was reduplicated also (and
the intensive too if that is what it is), one might expect the same
with **-er-s.
>
> >> > or in the Toch. prt. III.
> >
> >> -ar/-är can reflect either -r. or -r.s
> >
> >Yes, but the s-interpretation is a choice, not a fact. This is
not evidence.
>
> You presented it as counterevidence, which it isn't.
Right, it doesn't count.
[JER:]
> >> > 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.
[MCV:]
> >> Except for palatalization. The preterite ñakäs, ñakär has
> >> *e:, the midle nakät, nakänt has *o. So much is clear.
[JER:]
> >There are many cases of analogical palatalization and
depalatalization in
> >Tocharian.
[MCV:]
> But clearly not here. If the forms were analogical, they
> would not be different from each other.
I addressed that: they could reflect *ne:k^-/*n.k^- with levelled
vocalism, but unlevelled difference of palatality. Then what is
different counts, and what is the same doesn't.
[MCV:]
> >> >> 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.
[JER:]
> >> >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);
[MCV:]
> >> 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.
>
> I meant the desiderative.
That would need a laryngeal after sonorants, which we do not see in
forms like stós.i, párs.i, s'rós.i, yám.si. It will take a very
surprising kind of relationship with the desiderative to salvage
this.
> >>More later.
> >
> >According to Delbrück's account in Altindische Syntax 308-10 the
> >imperative-like
>
> But the imperatives in -si are not "imperative-like". They
> *are* imperatives, synchronically.
And imperatives cannot develop out of something that has an
imperative-like function?
> >use is quite a normal function of the second person of the
> >subjunctive. You are apparently unwilling to consider some of the
> >evidence: If Tocharian thematic presents (prs. II) quite
regularly go with
> >preterite I, the continuation of the root-aorist, that to me
looks like
> >satisfactory evidence that the subjunctive of the root-aorist
could become
> >a present indicative.
>
> Perhaps thematic presents come from old subjunctives, but
> that belongs to a wholly different stage, and is was over
> and done before the break-up of IE. I was referring to
> subjunctives that were subjunctives in late PIE.
Narten made a case for this being an ongoing process in the course
of the Vedic text tradition.
[MCV:]
> >> >> We then have:
> >> >>
> >> >> *-m
> >> >> *-s
> >> >> *-s-t
> >> >> ..
> >> >> *-rs
[JER:]
> >> >I do not see that. What I see is
> >> >
> >> >*-s-m
> >> >*-s-s
> >> >*-s-t
> >> >*-s-me
> >> >*-s-te
> >> >*-s-nt
[MCV:]
> >> 3pl. *-s-rs, actually. I explained below where these form
> >> come from.
[JER:]
> >I still do not see that.
[MCV:]
> The s-aorist has 3pl. -ur in Vedic, never -an. That should
> count for something.
Avestan has the 3pl s-aorist <uruua:xs^.at,> /vra:xs^at/ reflecting
*-s-n.t, different from the perfect -ar. If differences count more
than repetitions, this should count for more.
[JER:]
> >In Modern Greek the imperfect and aorist use the endings -a, -
es, -e,
> >-ame, -ate, -an. In this the 2/3 sg are thematic, while the rest
have the
> >-a- of the aorist. In Old Church Slavic the aorist has thematic
endings in
> >the 2/3 sg, as tec^e, tec^e 'ran, flowed', while the other
persons are
> >sigmatic, either 1sg têxU, pl. têxomU, têste, tês^eN, or 1sg
tekoxU, pl
> >tekoxomU, tekoste, tekos^eN. Here one could say: Where else do we
find
> >retention of an unmarked stem only in the 2/3 sg
>
> You know that's exact opposite of what I was saying.
Is it? Wouldn't that be just as hard to ascribe to chance? Is the
Greek-Slavic correspondence trivial and the Hittite-Tocharian one so
dramatic that comparative grammar has to be recast in its honour? I
am willing to accept anything if there is a good reason, but I have
trouble seeing it here.
Jens