On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 16:38:02 +0000, elmeras2000
<
jer@...> wrote:
>--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:
>> >> What I see (and apparently Cowgill had the same thought
>> >> before me) is a more interesting pattern than just 3sg. *-s.
>> >> I also see 3pl. *-(e)r-s.
>> >
>> >I fail to see the basis. I am not sure I understand the
>perspective
>> >either: is it meant to reflect 3sg **-t : **-t-i vs. 3pl **-ent :
>**-
>> >ent-i with word-final change **-t > *-s and **-nt > *-r?
>>
>> No. It reflects 3rd. person *-s.
>
>I have little quarrel with that. It will have to be very old,
>however, and the full paradigm will have to have been based on the
>3sg form. And if the aorist -s- is the same element as the -s- of
>the present-aspect companion -sk^e/o- that will have to have been
>based on the 3sg s-form already. Other cases of a transparent
>combination of unmarked aorist cum marked present have *-ye/o- in
>the present aspect.
Yes, that's why I argued that a form like g^ne:h3-s- is in
origin a root aorist, one that perhaps becuase of its root
structure, behaved differently from other root aorists, and
maintained the 3sg. ending *-s. Roots of the same structure
also tend to have the ending -úr in the root aorist (and,
analogically, even in the imperfect) in Vedic.
>Therefore one would like *-sk^e/o- to reflect *-
>s- + *-ye/o-. That is of course guesswork, but actually less so than
>the identification of the -s- as a third person marker. If there is
>any grain of truth to the idea that *-sk^e/o- represents *-s- + *-
>ye/o- it has been processed by rules we do not really know from
>other material and so would be likely to be very very old. Since a
>fully developed ske/o-paradigm is present in Hittite, it would
>follow that the s-aorist was also fullæy developed just as in the
>other branches.
I see it differently. We have the verb ganes- in Hittite
and we have a very productive category of ske-presents. But
crucially, ganeszi is a verb of the mi-conjugation, which
means that it is not in the same category as the past tense
of the hi-verbs. We also would not expect hi-verbs
("stative verbs") to make characterized present forms with
*-ske, *-ye or any other suffix. "Active" aorists do that.
I see Hittite as reflecting an intermediate stage, where
most root aorists have already merged morphologically (and
subsequently semantically) with the present system by giving
up their characteristic endings (e.g. 3sg. *-s) or passing
them on to original imperfects (3pl. *-é:r), except for a
small category of verbs such as ganeszi [with associated
ske-presents], but where the "stative aorists" (created to
supply a past tense for verbs of the hi-conjugation) have
not yet gone the same way as ganeszi (i.e. full
sigmatisation).
Only in "core IE" did the s-aorist develop fully (engulfing
the old category of g^ne:h3-s-verbs) as the formation of
choice to supply imperfective verbs ("root-presents") with
an aorist stem.
This analysis of course relies on the existence of an old
3sg. marker *-s, but I think it's otherwise consistent with
the evidence:
- we would expect characterized presents like *-sk^e to be
built on unmarked aorists. In my analysis, *g^ne:h3-s-,
*pah2-s- etc. once _were_ unremarkable root aorists
(*g^neh3- still is, in Greek). They only became remarkable
when all the other root-aorists switched to "normal" endings
(*-m, *-s, *-t, *-ent), giving up 3sg. *-s and 3pl. *-érs.
- if the Hittite hi-conjugation past was an s-aorist
"invaded" by perfect desinences (as I already said, the
opposite theory, that it was a perfect "invaded" by a single
s-aorist ending, 3sg. *-s, is typologically unlikely), then
ganes-zi should have been a hi-conjugation verb (it is a
plain s-aorist in Vedic and Slavic).
A propos the Tocharian A form <kñasäs.t> "hast erkannt", LIV
remarks "Kein Präsens, sondern perfektisches Präteritum".
Are any other forms of this verb known? It doesn't look
like a Class III preterit (which should have no -s- in the
2sg.).
>>[...] I suspect the original
>> distribution was:
>>
>> present-system: *-més(i), *-té, *-ént(i)
>> aorist-system: *-mén, *-tér, *-é:r,
>>
>> but I would need to explain and argument that in a whole
>> separate message.
>
>You should write a book about it. I would give it the same attention
>I'm aiming to accord Jasanoff's book. We can argue over details on
>the list, but you may run into a crediting problem. If you have a
>grand theory, you should publish it, so that we know what is yours.
>I wish you the best of luck in that endeavour.
Thank you. Maybe I will write a book, if I have the time,
and if I have enough inspiration and new ideas to fill in
the gaps that are still there.
I'm not overly concerned with crediting issues (except that
credit should where possible be given where credit is due).
Sometimes one has an idea, and it turns out somebody else
has had it long before (I only found out that Cowgill also
proposed a relation between Hittite 3sg. *-s and Av. 3pl.
-&r&s^ by a little footnote in Jasanoff). Sometimes one has
an idea (or no idea at all), but somebody else's idea works
much better. That's what I like about discussions such as
we have in this forum: it gives one an opportunity to
discard one's own's bad ideas in favour of better ideas by
others, to sharpen one's own ideas in the face of criticism
by others, and sometimes even bad ideas by others, or by
oneself, can inspire better ones in oneself, or in others.
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...