On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 09:48:05 +0000, tgpedersen
<
tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>> 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).
>
>
> I think this one makes sense,
>> and can be summarized summarily as: "the endings mean "to
>> have"."
>
>
>"I am" + *-e > "I have"
>"you are" + *-e > "you have"
>"he is" + *-e > "he has"
>
>??
Yes. The question is "how exactly?". I was originally
thinking something along the lines of a dative ("mihi est")
or locative ("u menja") construction, but that would imply
that the endings *-h2, *-th2 etc. would have had to have
developed into indirect object markers instead of subject
markers.
Perhaps it's easier to take the Kartvelian option.
I have to make a Nostratic digression, so followups are
better directed to the Nostratic list.
The stative/instransitive verbal construction as it can be
seen in Afro-Asiatic, Uralic, Turkic, Chukchi-Kamchtakan and
Eskimo-Aleut goes back in my opinion to an old copula *kV,
inflected with prefixed person markers (a feature only
preserved in Afro-Asiatic). We can reconstruct:
*?a-ku ~ ?a-ka
*ta-ka
--
*mi-ku(n)
*tu-ku(n)
--
When suffixed to a (verbal) noun, we get the stative:
Xa-?ku "I am X"
Xa-tka "you are X"
Xa "(he is) X"
Xat-m(i)ku(n) "we are X'es"
Xat-t(i)ku(n) "you are X'es"
Xan / Xati "(they are) X'es",
reflected in the various languages as:
Akk. Arab. Ge'ez Berber Eg.
-a:ku -tu -ku -G -kj
-a:ta -ta -ka -D -tj
-0 -a -a -0 -j
-a:nu -na: -na -&n -wjn
-a:tun(u) -tum -k&mmu -&m -tjwn
-u: -u: -u -iT -wj
PAA:
*-ku *-Hnu (?)
*-tka *-tkun
*-a *-u:/*-at(i)
1pl. *-Hnu because of p.p. *(?a)n-aHnu "we" (cf. *(?a)n-a:ku
"I", *?an-t(k)a "you", *an-t(k)un "you (pl.)). 3pl. -u: is
nominal plural ending.
The Akkadian forms are still true statives ("I am", "you
are", etc.). They are perfective verbal endings elsewhere
in Semitic and in Old Kingdom Egyptian (where the form was
later lost), and they are general verbal endings (often in
combination with the imperfective prefixes *?a-, *ta-, *ya-,
*na-) in Berber.
Uralic Chukchi Eskimo Turkic
*-k -&k -nga --
*-n -0 -ten -ng
*-0 -0 -0 -0
*-mmek *-m&k -kut -k
*-ttek -t&k (-ci) (-ngir^)
*-t -t -t (-lar)
1sg. Eskimo -nga < *-k + -a
2sg. Eskimo -ten < *-tk + 2sg. transitive -t?
Turk. *-ng, Uralic *-n perhaps through *-tk > *-nk > *-ng >
*-n.
1pl. Turk. -k would be the 1sg. ending, transferred to 1pl.
Esk. 1pl. -kut might be *-mk + plural *-d
2pl. Turk. -ngiz is the 2sg. ending, extended with pluralic
-ir^ (< *-ati). Esk. 2pl. is -ci in the transitive as well.
3pl. Turk. -lar is the nominal plural ending (coll. *-l(a) +
-ar < *-atu).
The forms are generally intransitive verbal endings in
Uralic, Chukchi, Eskimo-Aleut and Turkic.
The Kartvelian subject prefixes (singular and plural) are:
1. *xw-
2. *x-
3. 0-
E.g. in Svan (verb -i- "to be"):
xw-i "I am" xw-i-s^d "we are"
x-i "you are" x-i-s^d "you are"
l-i "he is" l-i-s^d "they are"
(the 3rd. person prefix l- occurs only in this verb, -s^d
(Geo. -t) is a plural marker).
I think it's likely (though hard to prove) that these
prefixes have the same origin as the suffixes in
Afro-Asiatic and "Eurasiatic" (*?(a)-ku > *xw-, *t(a)-ka >
*x-). If Indo-European also prefixed the copula, like
Kartvelian, we can imagine how a paradigm *x-a, *tx-a, *a (>
*-h2e, *-th2e, *-e) could have originally meant "I have",
"you have", "he has" (although reconstructing the plural
forms remains difficult: we would expect something like
*m(i)ku-a > *-mh3(w)ó, *t(i)ku-a > *-d(h)h3(w)ó ?).
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...