Re: But where does *-mi come from?

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

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>
> wrote:
>
> > > 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?
> > >
> >
> > Since the subject of active, primary *-i is in the locative, pre-
> PIE
> > at that time must have been ergative (as Alscher notes). That
> helps
> > explain why there's both a construction with subject + verbal

noun

> > (Latin ablative absolute) and object + verbal noun (Vedic): they
> would
> > both have been verbal noun + absolutive; therefore the two
> > constructions are identical. The absolutive typically isn't
> marked;
> > that's why we find no trace of a nominative suffix embedded in

the

> > noun of the ablative absolute and no sign of an accusative

suffix

> > embedded in the Vedic object + verbal noun (infinitive)
> construction.
>
> If I understand this correctly, it may have got off on the wrong
> foot. The ablative absolute (double ablative) involving the to-
> participle does not include the *subject* of the action. A typical
> example is <His rebus cognitis Caesar legiones equitatumque

revocari

> atque in itinere resistere iubet> (BG 5.11) "Having heard about
> this, Caesar orders the legions and the cavalry to be called back
> and make halt in the march". The one who understood something was
> Caesar, not "these things" which are pragmatically the object of

the

> participle, the original construction meaning "when these things

had

> been understood".

Oops.

>
> This, then, offers no basis for an analysis of the IE s-nominative
> subject of mi-conjugation verbs as an original ablative, for the

two

> constructions do not mean the same. It also seems to me that you
> depart from a problematizing attitude to things that are in

reality

> well understood. The absolute constructions are really not
> problematic. If a noun and a participle are combined in concord in
> an adverbial case, we get an adverbial sentence constituent. The
> original situation must have involved a choice: In the locative it
> would mean "while ...", with the instrumental "because ...", and
> with the ablative "after ...". Gothic has an absolute accusative
> which must have originally meant something like "as long as ...".
> These meanings are all fully understandable from the general
> functions of the cases involved. It must be ascribed to a

secondary

> development that the individual languages generalize one of the

old

> cases that could be so construed.
>

I was trying to explain the mi-conjugation from the ablative
absolute; I was not trying to explain the ablative absolute.


Torsten