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

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

> >> 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?
>
> Mobile root (PBS *abó:l => obuoly~s etc.) (a.p. c),
> immobilized by stressed (dominant) suffix *-kó(m) (=> a.p.
> b). Stress retracted to Winter acute: a:bUlkó > a"bUlko (=>
> a.p. a).

I am not sure I can accept this; it depends on the motivation for
the accent in the forms you depart from. Moreover, if it is a Slavic-
only rule it is not relevant for the discussion, for the analysis of
Lith. málti, Slav. *me´´lti as originally reduplicated is primarily
based on Latvian. I have a vague recollection that you had some
story about that too. Could you tell me how you avoid seeing Hirt's
Law retraction in Latvian mal~t, kal~t, ba~rt, ka~rt?

>
> The main evidence. Where shall I begin?
>
> Acutes caused by Winter's law (so no Hirt):
> sed-téi > sê"sti
> ed-téi > ê"sti
> beg-ah2-téi (Hirt)> beg-a"-ti > bê"gati
> beg-non-téi > bê"gnoNti
> vid-eh1-téi (Hirt)> vidê"ti > vi"dêti
> (in mobile ê-verbs the rule doesn't work:
> beg-eh1-téi (Hirt)> bêz^ê"ti, idem sêdê"ti)

> Double retraction:
> Cases like seh1i-ah2-téi (Hirt)> sêja"ti > sê"jati, rê"zati,
> etc.

Was the infinitive morpheme ever accented in the iterative -ati
verbs? If Winter + d + t can trigger the same retraction as
clusters, and vi´´dêti is analogical on sly´´s^ati, the evidence has
evapoarated.

> Failure of Hirt's law due to laryngeal breaking (*i/uH2/3):
> byla` (but by"ti)
> vila` (but vy"ti)
> gnila` (but gni"ti)
> pila` (but pi"ti)
> z^ila` (but z^i"ti)

I do not see a significant correlation in this.

> Failure of Hirt's law due to euH, eiH, etc.:
> c^u"ti (*keuh1-), du"ti (*deuh2-), rju"ti (*h3reuH-), etc.
> (there are a handful of exception in mobile verbs with *erH,
> *eNH: derti`, sterti`, perti` and peNti`, teNti`).

If the first set of verbs were reduplicated Hirt's law should work.
You cannot disprove that by just saying it didn't. Or did Hirt's law
work also on u-diphthongs (jáunas is not such a clear example
anyway)? It would be a very small divergence from the
syllabification habits of Sanskrit if *-eyHt- is monosyllabic all
over, while *-ewHt- has a syllabic reflex of the laryngeal in
Sanskrit but an asyllabic one in Balto-Slavic. I wonder if there are
clear examples from other branches? I rather see a potential benefit
for lack of schwa in some words.

> >> [...]
> >> >> 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.
>
> What don't you understand?

The vocalisms you begin with, and thereafter most of the rest.

>
> My hypothesis was that the stative endings (*-h2, *-th2,
> etc.) [originally an enclitic copula "I am", "you are",
> etc.] when extended with the element *-e can roughly be
> translated as "I have", "you have", etc. (by way of a "mihi
> est" construction). When added to a verbal form that we can
> roughly render as a past passive participle, we get the
> perfect/stative "I have X'ed", and when added to a kind of
> infinitive, we get the middle "I have to X" (for
> involuntary, accidental and other acts over which the
> subject has no control). We can see by the endings that the
> middle and the stative are related, but I have never seen an
> explanation that made sense and could be summarized in a few
> words of *why* that is so. I think this one makes sense,
> and can be summarized summarily as: "the endings mean "to
> have"."

Of course I understand that, it is in fact very close to what I
wrote myself in the Beekes festschrift, if only as a loose thought.
The middle-voice forms are weak forms and so are expected to have
underlying vowels; they show them too, so that is fine. The perfect,
on the other hand, always has a vowel *-e, and that does not
influence the accent the least bit, so that is not very fine. The
personal markers are the same, and the functional relationship is as
between 'be' and 'have', mid. 'is seen', pf. 'has seen'. That comes
very close to the actual meaning, but we do not have the rules to
make it work. The only thing reminiscent of an ablaut-resistent
possessive -e is the thematic vowel which does have these
properties, but we have no other cases where a thematic marker is
added to a full word without consequences for the accent. This
surely has not been analyzed fully satisfactorily yet.

Jens