Re: *m for 1st & *t for 2nd person in PIE and Proto-Uralic

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Daniel J. Milton" <dmilt1896@...>
wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "C. Darwin Goranson"
> <cdog_squirrel@...> wrote:
> > As regards this well-known connection,how did it arise? Is this
> > something that dates back to the divergence of PIE and PU, or is
> this
> > the result of deeply intimate borrowing? Certainly such borrowing
> can
> > be seen with Finnish yheksän [sic] and kahdeksan )(something
> akin to
> > "kaksi" (Finnish "two) + dekm (PIE "ten") + san (less))
> >
> > If that string of logic has any breaks, please point them out.
> >
> > But would the use of *m- and *t- in PIE and PU be the result of
> > borrowing or divergence?
> **********
> You may not like Greenberg's comparative methods, but on
> something simple like *m- and *t-,I suspect he's reliable.
> In his "IE and its Closest Relatives", he reports 1st

pers. 'm'

> "in every subgroup except Ainu", which I take it means in IE,

Uralic,

> Altaic, Gilyak, Korean-Jap.-Ainu, Chukotian, and Esk.-Aleut.

Even if

> he's wrong about half, that's too many for borrowing.
> 2nd person *t- is not quite so universal, but widespread
> also.

Finno-Ugric 1st and 2nd person ssuffixes seem to match. In the 3rd
person IE uses -t, -nt, suspected by some to be identical the
participle suffixers -t-, -nt-, whereas Finnish uses what was once a
participle in -p-. Tocharian A has 3rd person -m, perhaps from the
same suffix? There are supposedly loans from Tocharian in Finno-
Ugric.



Torsten