On Tue, 08 Mar 2005 22:32:36 +0000, elmeras2000
<
jer@...> wrote:
>--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:
>> On Tue, 08 Mar 2005 20:22:36 +0100, Miguel Carrasquer
>> <mcv@...> wrote:
>>
>> >On Tue, 08 Mar 2005 14:40:01 +0000, elmeras2000
>> ><jer@...> wrote:
>> >
>> >>--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...>
>wrote:
>> >>>
>> >>> Isn't it obvious? haita haitis haitiþ vs. hait, haist,
>> >>> hait. OS, OHG io (not iu) confirms this.
>> >>
>> >>No, not to me. Is Gothic taken to have *added* reduplication?
>> >
>> >Did I say that?
>
>
>No, I just asked you now: What is the first part of forms like
>Gothic haihald, haihait, etc.?
>
>But I now notice you wrote in a recent message:
>
>> Reduplication was apparently
>> optional, generalized as a preterite marker in Gothic (where
>> the Ablaut of present and preterite didn't differ), and lost
>> in N. and W. Germanic (except for isolated cases like ON
>> sera < *se-so:-).
>
>That makes me shake my head completely. Now you do accept that
>reduplication can be simply lost.
Not quite what I said.
Of course it's possible for reduplication to be lost, like
it's possible for reduplication to be added. What I object
to, with Jasanoff, is the completely arbitrary and
rigour-less way in which reduplication or lack of it is
handled in "standard theory". The Hittite hi-conjugation is
seen as a dereduplicated perfect, in spite of the fact that
reduplication is not otherwise lost in Hittite, even in
forms clearly associated with the perfect, like wewakta.
The same goes for Tocharian: class III preterites and class
V subjunctives are treated as dereduplicated perfects,
despite the fact that Tocharian maintains the reduplicated
aorist, and has reduplication in the perfect participle
(kaknu/kekenu, etc.). In LIV, Hitt. paddai, Lat. fodio and
Slavic bodoN, bosti are derived, contrary to fact, from
reduplicated *bhe-bhodhh2-, while the Slavic form is
separated from its Baltic cognate Lith. bedù (besti)
(supposedly from PIE *bhedhh2-e-). The same nonsense, but
in reverse, is seen in the root "to grind", where Hitt.
malli, Goth. malan and Lith. malù (málti) are derived from
*me-molh2-, while Slavic meljoN, melti is derived from
*melh2-. If we stick to the facts instead of preconceived
notions, it should be obvious that neither *bhodhh2- nor
*molh2- shows any reduplication anywhere, and that the
alternation of o- and e-vocalism seen in Balto-Slavic is
best explained as deriving it from the Ablaut o/e (sg.
*bhodhh2- ~ pl. *bhedhh2-; sg. *molh2-, pl. *melh2-) which
is in fact _attested_ in Hittite in this very same category
of verbs.
What this means for the relationship between the perfect and
e.g. the hi-conjugation in Hittite is not entirely clear.
Jasanoff sticks to the notion of the perfect as a
reduplicated category (albeit originally with *o ~ *e
Ablaut), which implies that the hi-conjugation is thus not
simply derivable from the perfect. In fact, the perfect is
derived according to Jasanoff from a certain hi-conjugation
formation (the "stative-intransitive aorist") by
reduplication. Apart from the fact that I find it
impossible to explain Jasanoff's theory in one paragraph
(it's much too complicated for that), it also fails to
answer some of the obvious questions: what happened to the
perfect in Hittite? Why do we not find reduplication in
Germanic in formations that should be derived from the
"classic" perfect (praeterito-presents, preterites from
e-verbs), and why *do* we find reduplication in forms where,
I think, we wouldn't expect it within the framework of
Jasanoff's theory (the preterite of o-verbs, with o~e
Ablaut)?
The alternative would be to let go of reduplication as a
necessary component of the PIE perfect, which is what I'm
currently contemplating. I have no idea as yet whether
that's a viable hypothesis and, if so, where it leads to.
We'll just have to wait and see. Or shake one's head,
whatever.
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...