[tied] Re: Mi- and hi-conjugation in Germanic

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:

> >I don't understand you. Do you mean it does not work for you

because

> >you refuse to posit a reduplicated form, or do you mean it would

not

> >work even if you did reduplicate the protoform?
>
> I mean that in my view of Slavic accentology, any acute root
> in a non-mobile paradigm attracts the accent, even if
> unaffected by Hirt's law. Let's call it the "jábloko-rule".

This is important. Could you rehearse the main evidence for such a
rule? What shows that the accent has been moved in jábloko?

> >> Melchert claims that laryngeals do not syllabize in
> >> Anatolian (although I'm not sure I agree).
> >
> >I know, I'm still waiting for an argument.
>
> From Melchert?

From anybody.

>
> [...]
> >> Indeed not. But I have an explanation for o/e ablaut which
> >> works for nouns and verbs alike: *ó is the reflex of an
> >> earlier lengthened vowel (**a:) under the stress, and *é
> >> results from the same lengthened vowel in pretonic position.
> >
> >Then you don't have a place for /é:/ in the acrostatic paradigms.
> >You just killed Narten and now act innocent.
>
> Absolutely not. You are right of course that Narten-forms
> are closely connected to the o/e-Ablaut I describe above.
> They are different aspects of the same thing.
>
> Actually, most of the phenomena falling under "Narten" are
> equally well described as cases of o/e-Ablaut according to
> my definition above. For instance, if we look in LIV for
> verbal forms classified as "acrostatic root presents", that
> includes:
>
> (1) forms that show /e/ in otherwise weak paradigms (e.g.
> the middle);
> (2) forms that have /a:/ in Indo-Iranian in an open
> syllable, not after a palatal.
>
> These might as well be cases of o/e-Ablaut.
>
> We are left with a relatively small but important group that
> shows strong forms with /e:/ and weak forms with zero or /e/
> (Ved. dá:s.t.i, má:rs.t.i, rá:s.ti, s'á:sti, tá:s.t.i;
> ks.n.áuti, stáuti; perhaps some forms with BS /e:/, like
> sêkoN, smêjoN, tré.s^kiu).
>
> These forms reflect a lengthened vowel *i:, which regularly
> develops into /é:/ under the stress. That there are much
> fewer cases of /e:/ than there are of /o/ is as expected,
> given that /o/ is the result of the lengthening of both */a/
> => /a:/ > /o/ and */u/ => /u:/ > /o/, while only */i/ =>
> /i:/ gives /e:/. In the weak grade, we would expect *i: and
> *u: to give zero, while *a: gives /e/. In practice, there
> has been some levelling (zero grade in má:rs.t.i, mr.jánti;
> stáuti, stuvánti; but /e/-grade in e.g. tá:s.t.i
> [*té:tk^-ti], táks.ati [*tétk^-n.ti]).
>
> The levelling may have affected the expected Ablaut of roots
> with original *u (o ~ zero) even more, at least I can't
> think of a good example right now (the o ~ 0 Ablaut of the
> perfect must explained otherwise). Presumably, there was a
> tendency to unite the three expected Ablaut grades (o ~ e, o
> ~ 0 and e: ~ 0) into either o ~ e or e: ~ e.
>
> There is one instance where perhaps Narten is endangered by
> something you proposed, namely the explanation of Vedic 1sg.
> past middle -i as from reduced *-h2. If we compare the
> behaviour of the element *-e- added to the stative endings
> *-h2, *-th2 etc. in the middle versus the
> perfect/hi-conjugation, we see that this *-e- always carries
> the stress in the middle forms (*-h2ái, *-th2ái, *-ói,
> *-ntói, leaving the root in zero grade), while in the
> perfect it is unstressed in the singular (o-grade + *-h2e,
> *-th2e, *-e), but stressed in the 1/2 plural (zero-grade +
> *-mé, *-té or something similar), and appears to be absent
> in the 3pl. (perhaps expected *-né (*-ré) was replaced by
> *-én > *-ér(s) here). But if -i indeed comes from *-&2 (I
> would actually prefer *-h2-i, but that's not the point),
> then perhaps the element originally behaved similarly in
> both middle and perfect, and the middle singular once
> regularly had e-grade and stress on the root, before it was
> polarized as an end-stressed form. In that case, "Narten
> middles" are in fact archaisms unrelated to the rest of the
> Narten system. If my analysis of the middle vs. the
> perfect/hi-conjuation is correct ("I have to X" vs. "I have
> X'ed"), we wouldn't expect "lengthened grade" (e: or o) in
> the middle anyway.

You have lost me completely here. We are just not communicating;
seems a pity.

>
> [...]
> >> But the ugly truth is that the relict reduplicated forms in
> >> Anglian do not support the "dereduplication with contraction
> >> to e:2"-theory all that well. We have:
> >>
> >> la:can: leolc (vs. le:c)
> >> le:tan (læ:tan): leort (vs. le:t)
> >> re:dan (ræ:dan): reord (vs. re:d)
> >>
> >> What these forms actually suggest is that the e:2/eo/e does
> >> *not* originate in reduplication-with-contraction.
> >
> >Do they not show the liquids twice? Is that not reduplication?
>
> Exactly. That means that where the reduplicated forms were
> maintained, we didn't get *e:2, so *e:2 cannot come from the
> reduplicated forms.

No, if the e:2 output is a replacement of a reduplicated structure,
there should not be e:2 when the reduplication is retained.

>

> >> The van Coetsem theory, on the other hand, explains the NW
> >> Germanic facts quite elegantly.
> >
> >
> >Van Coetsem and you show a complete disregard for the

complementary

> >distribution between the a-verbs of class VI and the a-verbs of
> >class VII. The a-verbs in class VII are those that could not form
> >the class-VI o:-type slo:h, fo:r, mo:l, ho:f, because they have
> >closed syllables: falthan, staldan, faNhan, ha:han, aikan,

fraisan,

> >haitan, laitan, maitan, aukan. If you make the prestage of

*fo:lth,

> >that also becomes *falth. Therefore nothing is gained by

replacing

> >the reduplicated structure by the o:-form in this subgroup, so
> >faifalth lived on. I consider it extremely unelegant to have a
> >putative *far-/*fer- become far-/fo:r- if hait-/*heit- is

retained.

> >Why would that be regulated by the root structure?
>
> Most likely for the same reason that /e:/ is regulated by
> root structure in Classes IV and V. The parallel is
> complete in the preterite plural, where verbs in -eC/-eR
> have -e:C, verbs in -oC/-Or have -o:C. In the singular, we
> would expect -oC in both cases (perhaps with reduplication
> in the o-verbs), but we find -oC and -o:C. I'm not entirely
> convinced that the /o:/ in the singular of class VI verbs is
> due to analogy after vowel-initial verbs, as you suggested,
> because there seems to be no contraction in Gothic vowel
> initial verbs of Class VII (aìauk, etc. [the really
> interesting cases, like alþan [*aì-alþ?] are not attested]).
>
> If we had in the preterite:
>
> e-verb: o-verb:
> sg. bar- (fe)far-
> pl. br- ~ bor- fer-
>
> which was replaced by:
>
> e-verb: o-verb:
> sg. bar- (fe)far-
> pl. be:r- fo:r-,
>
> then the innovation was to extend o: to the singular of the
> o-verb preterite (Class VI).
>
> Verbs with other root structures did not introduce e: or o:,
> so we have:
>
> e-verbs o-verbs:
> sg. staig- he-hait-
> baud- he-hlaup-
> band- he-hald-
> pl. stig- heit- (> heet-)
> bud- hleup- (> hleop-)
> bund- held-,
>
> which explains all the attested forms.

You do not say how bar-/be:r- arose, and in parallel fashion far-
/fo:r-. They are both very well explained from reduplicated preforms
of vowel-initial roots: *H1e-H1d- > e:d- > e:t-; *H2a-H2g^- > a:g- >
o:k-. Then, after et- => e:t- we get ber- => be:r-, and after ak- =>
o:k- we get far- => fo:r-. These forms replaced the reduplicated
weak forms, not the weak form of the participle which was not
reduplicated, therefore baurans, farans. The singular of be:r- could
be simply dereduplicated bar-, but a preterite far- was not
acceptable because the present form was the same, so fo:r- was
generalized in the whole of the preterite of a-verbs. If the root
structure did not permit /o:/ to be opposed to /a/, reduplication
was retained, possibly in some standardized guise, but certainly
retained.

Jens