Re: primary endings

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "elmeras2000" <jer@...> wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>
> wrote:
> >
> > I am much impressed, but not quite convinced. One advantage of
> > seeing the supposed finite verb (with active endings) is that it
> > will explain why *-os is both nominative and genitive and *-om

is

> > both accusative and genitive; thus: the PIE sentence with an
> active
> > verb is actually a verbal noun with two genitives (or a genitive
> and
> > a partitive?). Therefore *-os, the 'subjective genitive' marker,
> > becomes a nominative marker, and *-om, the 'objective genitive'

or

> > partitive marker, becomes an accusative marker when the verbal
> noun
> > is reinterpreted as a finite verb.
>
> I am quite impressed too, but not buying. I take your second
> sentence to mean "One advantage of seeing the supposed finite
> verb ... [as a verbal noun] is that ...".

Right.


I have several objections:

>
> 1. The nominative and the genitive singular are not identical; the
> genitive morpheme has a vowel, the nominative never does. I also
> believe they have two different sibilants.

In the athematic inflection, the genitive ending is stressed, the
nominative one isn't. This would have developped out of a need to
distinguish the two functions. In that case the vowel common to both
endings would have been irretrievably lost in the nominative.

> 2. The accusative singular is just *-m, while the genitive you

mean

> will be the genitive plural in *-oom, if not *-oHom. They are not
> exactly identical either.
>

Athematic *-om, thematic *-o-om. The latter was created in order to
introduce the thematic vowel into the whole paradigm, on the
poattern of the athematic *-om, which, as was the case of genitive
suffix *-os, was stressed in order to distinguish the functions of
the *-Vm suffix's two functions as accusative and genitive.

> 3. I see no reason for the odd distribution that an old subjective
> genitive is supposed to become a nominative singular, and an old
> objective genitive is later found as a genitive plural and an
> accusative singular.

I shouldn't have written 'subjective genitive' and 'objective
genitive' as if that were their original functions since I believe
those two functions were secondary and derivative to their use as
subject and object with the verbal noun. The 'original functions'
were genitive singular and genitive plural respectively, and since
sentences with single subject - multiple object are way more common
than those with multiple subject - single object the *-Vs became
the 'subjective genitive' and *-Vm the 'objective genitive' markers,
respectively.

> >
> > In order to get there, we must see -t as a verbal noun marker

(the

> > road between adjectival forms of verbs and verbal nouns is

short).

> > That should take care of the *-gWHen "-killer" argument (since

now

> > agent nouns have -Ø, action nouns -t).
>
> Stems in *-t are generally agent nouns, not action nouns. That
> actually seems to matter very much for this language.
>

As you mentioned, Ved. su-kr.´t- 'gut handelnd'. That is an
adjective, not a noun. If understood as a noun, it is an agent noun,
yes. But. cf. Danish 'indehavende': if common gender 'en
indehavende' "an owner" it is an agent noun, but when neuter 'et
indehavende' "a possession" it is an action noun (except "own" is
not an action, but a state, and with an apology for stretching
Danish grammar to the limit). Verbal nouns in -nde, same the present
participle are much more common in Swedish, and the English gerund
in -ing, having both senses, is available for every verb. Therefore,
it is possible for a language to develop a participal suffix (eg.
PIE -t) into a verbal noun suffix (not that I have actual evidence
for PIE).

> > -m and -s are then either portmanteau morphemes with the double
> > meaning "my V-ing", "thy V-ing" respectively, or were once -t-m
> and
> > -t-s, respectively.
>
> Vaillant actually suggested (in a BSL paper of 1937) a derivation

of

> 2sg *-s from **-t-t. I used to be frightfully impressed by it, but
> today I cannot accept it. Stems in *-t are not passive participles
> as he wanted them to be, and -tt does not yield -s in any other
> cases we know.
>

Active participles would be nice.



Torsten