From: Miguel Carrasquer
Message: 36650
Date: 2005-03-05
>On 05-02-27 00:51, Miguel Carrasquer wrote:I had considered this possibility in the past, but I can't
>
>> If we compare the middle/perfect/hi-conjugation endings with
>> what we see in Afro-Asiatic, Kartvelian, Uralic, Chukchi,
>> etc., we would expect the following endings:
>>
>> 1. *-h2
>> 2. *-th2
>> 3. *-0
>> 3. *-(e)r
>>
>> The actual PIE endings have an added element *-e- (*-o- in
>> the middle, but still *-a- after *h2), which comes after the
>> personal endings:
>>
>> 1. *-h2-a, 2. *-th2-a, 3. *-e, 3. M. *-ro- (*-nto-)
>>
>> My suggestion is that this *-e somehow turns the stative "I
>> am" (with *-h2 as subject) into a verbal form meaning "it is
>> to me" = "I have [it]" (with *-e presumably the subject, and
>> *-h2- the indirect object).
>
>A suggestion: If this *-e was a clitic incorporated into the
>inflectional ending at a relatively late date, this might explain the
>ablaut of the perfect without ad hoc tricks like "the *kWetwóres" rule.
>Supposing that the original stative was *bHébHor-, the accent would have
>been shifted to the *o when an unaccented enclitic followed, yielding
>*bHebHór#e > *bHebHór-e. In plural forms with final stress, such as
>*bHebHr.-mé, the underlyingly accented inflection "stole" the accent
>from the stem (on the analogy of such forms as *gWHn.-mé- or *h1i-mé-).
>These forms, modelled on other parts of the verb system, arose so late
>that the reduplication vowel remained as *e and stress was not retracted
>from the final syllable.
>> When added to a verbal noun/adjective characterized by aThe cases of "groats", "meat" and "(coagulated) milk" do
>> heavy (lengthened) root vowel (o/e: ~ e/0 Ablaut) the result
>> is the whole complex of the hi-conjugation/perfect/s-aorist,
>> which can be roughly translated as "I have VERB'ed" (mihi
>> est VERBatum), denoting a present state resulting from past
>> action. The "o-form" of the verb must have been comparable
>> to a past/passive participle.
>>
>> When added to a verbal noun/adjective characterized by a
>> short root vowel (e ~ 0 Ablaut) the result is the middle,
>> which I suggest might be roughly translated as "I have to
>> VERB" (mihi est VERBare). The "e-form" of the verb must
>> have been comparable to an infinitive. The middle then
>> denoted an action out of the direct control of the subject.
>>
>>
>> Does anybody understand what I'm getting at?
>
>More or less. There's an idea I've been toying with for a long time, and
>perhaps the time is ripe for sharing it here. The late Polish linguist
>Adam Weinberg once suggested, as an obiter dictum in a handbook of IE
>morphology, that there may have been an early form of "perfect
>participle" -- a verbal adjective based on the bare reduplicated stem
>without any suffixes. His original examples are just two: Hitt. memal
>'groats' < substantivised *mé-ml.h2 (or *mé-mo:l?) 'that has been
>ground', , and Lat. memor 'mindful, that reminds one (of sth.)';
>Weinberg connects the latter with *(s)mer- 'remember'. I wouldn't
>however exclude the analysis of <memor> as *mé-mr. (a variant of
>*mé-m(o)n- with final rhotacism), connecting it directly with the root
>*men- and <memini:> (and Gk. Memn-o:n, for example). Of course I'm aware
>of the "handbook" etymology of <memor> as *me-mn-us-, but how about
>something more straightforward?
>
>My own addition to Weinberg's idea is the guess that the inanimate
>variant of the adjective originally had a passive meaning while the
>animate one was active, and that the perfect itself is a denominal
>formation based on this "participle" (cf. the Slavic l-preterite).
>
>Other examples could be proposed, especially of lexicalised
>substantivisations, e.g. *dHe-dH(h1)- '(coagulated) milk' (from
>*dHeh1i-), perhaps *me-ms- 'meat' (speculatively, from
>*meh1-/*met-/*mes- 'cut into portions' [--> 'mete out, measure'], cf.
>Skt. masti- 'measuring'). This would open the way for analysing
>reduplicated nouns such as *kWe-kWl[h1]-o- as derivatives of "Weinberg
>adjectives". The classic perfect participle in *-wot-/-us- could itself
>be regarded as one of such secondary formations.