--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
> All Jens had to say was that the semi-thematic paradigm is rare.
> Schmalstieg quotes Meillet as saying that comparative grammar should
> use anomalies, ie. survivals, rather than regular forms. I second
> that.
I used to do the same, in a sense I still do. For Goth. im, OIr. -am,
Slav. jesmI, Alb. jam, and the singularly short Arm. em are also
anomalies within their respective systems. And, in contrast with Lat.
sum, they correspond with each other. It is perhaps not quite true
that sum is unsupported, for there is also Slavic-Macedonian sum 'I
am', but that is know to be from older jesmI. If you want a longer
story about it from my pen you may locate my review article on
Schmalstieg, Indo-European Linguistics, published in Acta Linguisticsa
Hafniensia 17, 1982, 169-187 (esp. 182f on sum).
Jens