tgpedersen wrote:
> Further, who would want to press a verb for 'be' into a new and
> complicated mould, such as that of the semi-thematic paradigm? What
> purpose would be served by that?
Who would have wanted to complicate the paradigm of 'to be' in Polish?
1sg. jestem < jest (3sg.!) + jes'm' (the original 1sg.)
2sg. jestes' < jest + jes'
3sg. jest
1pl. jestes'my < jest + jesmy (why not *sa,s'my?)
2pl. jestes'cie < jest + jes'cie
3pl. [surprise!] sa,
Who would have wanted to complicate the present-tense conjugation of 'to
be' in German by mixing <bin> with b-less forms? What's "purpose" does
<are> serve in in English?
People don't _plan_ such things. They try to make sense of the forms
they are exposed to when learning their mother tongue, and sometimes
they fail to analyse them correctly, so they missegment morphemes,
confuse or blend words, overgeneralise, fall prey to false analogies,
etc. As Jens pointed out, in allegro forms *e was more likely to be
syncopated than *o, so the semithematic paradigm was produced by a
phonetic process affecting frequently used verb forms. At some point the
new generation of Latin speakers heard [fert] much more frequently than
*[feret], so they assumed the former to be the underlying form, just
like the present-day speakers of English treat <every> as disyllabic.
> Schmalstieg, if I understand him
> correctly, thinks the semi-thematic paradigm (*bhro: *bhers *bhert
> *bhromos *bhertis *bhront) was the original one and the thematic one
> a generalisation of it.
I won't spoil Jens's fun by explaining why this is untenable. I'm sure
he'll demolish the idea with gusto :)
Piotr