[tied] Re: sum

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

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>
> wrote:
>
> > Which would be a problem, again, if the semi-thematic paradigm
> didn't
> > belong to pre-PIE, which is does, by hypothesis.
>
> That is fully logical of course. If the suggested semi-thematic

type

> is pre-PIE it may show pre-PIE phonetic changes, sure. But what
> chance is there that it is pre-PIE?
>
> The 1sg present ends in unlenited -imm in Old Irish in the verbal
> types that do not continue the thematic conjugation (in Middle

Irish

> also in the thematic verbs). There is no other credible source of
> the -mm than influence from the -mm of 'I am' where it arose
> regularly from *-sm-. The OIr. copula is 1sg am or amm, 1pl ammi,
> certainly reflecting *-sm-. Thus, there is *-sm- in Celtic, and
> there is -sm- in Sanskrit ásmi and Hittite esmi. How could there

not

> have been *-sm- in Indo-European? So the root *H1es- met the
> desinence *-mi directly in PIE, meaning that this form was not
> thematic. There is also *-sm- in the OIr. 1pl ammi and in Sanskrit
> smás, so how could there not have been *-sm- in PIE here? Then

this

> was not a thematic form either. I used to believe the semithematic
> story myself, since sum is so aberrant, and "la grammaire comparée
> doit se faire en utilisant les anomalies" (Meillet). But also esmi
> is irregular in some of its synchronic systems, and sum is in fact

a

> bit less irregular than that in the Latin system. So all in all,

one

> will only ascribe pre-PIE age to the structure of sum if one has

to.

> And one doesn't have to.
>

Will one that? One is from Sjælland, I gather? ;-). This one will do
it anyway and see where the ride takes him. As for the presence of
1 sg./pl. *-sm- in pre-PIE, that is only to be expected since that
is the outcome of regularising the *h1s- paradigm. It does not
preclude the existence of 1 sg./pl. *som- .


Also, one could do as follows:
Take a root
*ber-
add irreal -s-
*ber-s-
inflect semi-thematically
bher-s-óm
bhér-s-s
bhér-s-t
(I think I'll leave out the plural)

Voilà, sigmatic aorist.


Torsten