--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Andrew Jarrette <anjarrette@...>
wrote:
> Thank you, Jens.
>
> I didn't know that Greek had an intransitive/passive aorist with -
e:- (-e:m, -e:s, -e: etc.). Was this applied to thematic verbs, or
denominative verbs, or other?
It is formed from the root.
> Did it take the zero grade of the root as in PIE?
Mostly yes.
> You say that it is a stative suffix in PIE, but in Greek it became
aorist. Is it the same as the suffix -e:y- that occurs in durative
verbs, such as those that became Germanic class III weak verbs, e.g.
*take:y- "remain silent", Gothic thahan? This suffix clearly did
not have an aorist meaning in Germanic, nor in Latin. Strange to me
that it should become aorist in Greek.
Yes, the formation is basically the same. The derivation creates a
derivative verb, i.e. a lexeme in its own right, which was
secondarily joined to the base-verb in Greek as an aorist, sometimes
an alternative aorist. In Germanic the combination of the present
form *-H1-yé/ó- and the aorist form *-éH1- led to a derived verb
with a suffix *-e:-ye/o- > *-e:i-/*-e:a- (Gothic -ai-/-a-). That was
already the present form of statives derived from thematic
adjectives, as Lat. albus => albe:re, albe:sco:, i.e. based on *-e-
H1-ye/o-. It is wrong to speak of the suffix as "-e:y-".
>
> I now know that the n-infix could also be applied to adjectival
roots, not just verbal roots. But are you saying that
the "factitive" suffix is *-H2 (plus athematic endings?), which was
applied to the PPP in *-no? Is this the same as *-H2 in e.g.
*neweH2- "renew", with either *-ye/o- thematic endings or athematic
endings? It would seem that it changes an o-grade vowel before it
to e-grade (i.e. the o-stem adjective ending).
Yes, it is the suffix of *newa-H2- (Hitt. newah-mi 'I renew'). In my
thinking this also formed a present with *-ye/o-, e.g. *newa-H2-yó:
> Lat. re-novo:, re-nova:s. The form without *-yé/ó- was then the
aorist. And yes, it could be added to the stem of the participle in
*-no-. It was also added to the to-participle, as in the Latin
iterative type canta:re, from *kan-ta-H2-yé/ó-, lit. "make sung",
i.e. 'sing'. The thematic vowel is /-e-/ before voiceless segments,
so it was *new-e-H2- that turned into *newaH2- by the regular
laryngeal coloration. The reason it is commonly cited as "-o-" is
that it forms the surprising nom.sg. *-o-s which must reflect an
older voiced *-z (which gave PIE *-s), and substantives have a
marked tendency to generalize *-o- at the expense of *-e-. The old
distribution is preserved in pronouns and in thematic verbs.
Jens