Re: [tied] Greek thematic endings

What do you make of Szemerényi's suggestion that B-S and Greek both show
signs of an original primary *-ti in athematic stems, and *-i in thematic?

Peter

----- Original Message -----
From: "Miguel Carrasquer" <mcv@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, March 15, 2005 9:49 AM
Subject: [tied] Greek thematic endings


>
> Here's something I casually mentioned a while back without
> making it explicit.
>
> The Greek present thematic endings are a classical problem.
> We have:
>
> -o:, -eis, -ei
>
> (imperfect: -on, -es, -e)
>
> for expected:
>
> -o:, *-esi > -ei, *-eti > -esi.
>
> For Slavic, I had earlier suggested (based on the data from
> the Novgorod birch-bark inscriptions), that the endings
> *-eti > -etI and *-et > -e, -etU (c.q. *-onti > -oNtI and
> *-ont > -oN, -oNtU), which both occur in Slavic, can be
> derived from the indicative present (*-eti) and the
> subjunctive (*-et). Jens suggested instead an injunctive
> *-et (*-ont). If thematic presents derive from subjunctives
> anyway (and the "double thematic" subjunctive is a
> relatively recent formation), the two forms are historically
> identical anyway.
>
> In the case of Greek, the injunctive explanation fits the
> facts better. In any case, what I would suggest is that
> like in Balto-Slavic, pre-Greek used both indicative *-eti
> and injunctive *-et as present tenses (originally perhaps
> with a modal distinction that was soon watered down). In
> the end, *-et completely replaced *-eti, and we would have
> had:
>
> phero: epheron
> pheresi epheres
> pheret epheret
>
> After loss of -t:
>
> phero: epheron
> pheresi epheres
> phere ephere
>
> To distinguish the present from the injunctive proper, an -i
> was added (after 2sg. pheresi) in the 3sg. present:
>
> phero: epheron
> pheresi epheres
> pherei ephere
>
> After loss of -s-:
>
> phero: epheron
> pherei epheres
> pherei ephere
>
> And finally addition of -s in the 2sg. (after preterite
> -es):
>
> phero: epheron
> phereis epheres
> pherei ephere
>
>
> This way, the facts in Greek can be brought into agreement
> with the facts in Balto-Slavic (where both *-et and *-eti
> are reflected) and Old Irish (biur, bir, be(i)r must come
> from *bhero:, *bhere(s)i, *bheret, cf. 2pl. *bherete >
> berid, berith). The Latin merger of *-eti > -it/-et and
> *-et > OLat. -id/-ed (in favour of *-eti) can perhaps be
> ascribed to the same cause.