Re: sum

> > 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- .
>
> That regularising process has then changed a number of presumed
> thematic forms to athematic forms. All other regularization goes

the

> other way. Except for Anatolian which obviously developed a

problem

> with the "simple thematic" structure all IE languages show a

massive

> drift of athematic structures into thematic conjugations. So

massive

> in fact that the process must have begun before the disintegration
> of the protolanguage. Are we now to believe that, after the

breakup

> of PIE, inherited thematic forms of the 1sg, 1pl and 3pl were
> *normalized* away from the ongoing trend which was to thematize

and

> were instead *athematized*?

Nonono. They existed already. If the semi-thematic is the original
one, you get the thematic one by inserting _stressed -e-_ in the
zero forms, getting a suffix-stressed static thematic paradigm. Move
stress forward a few syllables: Voilà, thematic paradigm.


(to be continued)

Torsten