Re: But where does *-mi come from?

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

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>

wrote:

> >
> > Some nominal and verbal suffixes are identical, as Alscher has
> noted,
> > e.g.
> >
> > locative *-i and primary *-i
> > dative *-ei and middle *-oi
> > 'locative' *-r and middle *-r
> > [endingless locative and secondary?]
> >
> > Latin has a "double ablative", a dependent construction where a
> > subject and a past pasticiple (*-tó-) of its verb are given

ablative

> > endings. Similar constructions exist in OCS (with dative) and
> Sanskrit
> > (several cases). Perhaps such a dependent construction is the

origin

> > of the mi-conjugation?
>
>
> You don't have to use the ppp in Latin, present participle in *-

ónt

> will do. And if one has
> locative thematic *-oi and primary *-ónti
> you get *-oi > Latin -i: ; voila, nom. pl.
>
>

So what was nominative (*-áz > -óz) and accusative (*-ám > *-óm)
doing then? They were partitives (two partitives?? but that's as
close as I can get now) which later, when the participle began to be
understood as a finite verb, split up into *´-z(nom.sg.)/*-óz
(gen.sg.) and *´-m(acc.sg)/*-óm(gen.pl.), respectively, for the new
and old uses, respectively. The plural partitive (?) ended up as
accusative for merely statistical reasons; "one man eats thousand
fish", sg. V pl., is more common than "thousand men eat one fish",
pl. V sg.


Torsten