Re: [tied] 1sg. -o: [was Re: IE Thematic Vowel Rule]

On Mon, 22 Aug 2005 10:18:13 +0200, Piotr Gasiorowski
<gpiotr@...> wrote:

>Miguel Carrasquer wrote:
>
>> I have doubts about whether the doubly thematic subjunctive
>> was pan-PIE or merely dialectal IE, let alone pre-PIE. If,
>> as Jens has stated, and I tend to agree with him, the
>> thematic present derives from the subjunctive, then the
>> thematic thematic subjunctive must be late. And its
>> composite nature was very much at the surface still (had it
>> existed in Balto-Slavic, I have no doubt it would have had
>> circumflex intonation).
>
>Are you so sure _all_ thematic presents were original subjunctives?

No.

>As far as I recall, Jens has claimed that of the "plain" thematics like
>*bHere/o- and, I think, of the reduplicated ones. What about
>causative/iteratives in *-eje/o-, and the *-je/o- and *-sk^e/o- presents
>-- all of them major classes of present stems in PIE? I see no reason to
>deny them the status of ordinary presents in the protolanguage, whatever
>their ultimate origin. It would be rash to assume that the hyperthematic
>subjunctive _must_ be late and "merely dialectal" only because it's
>secondary and transparently composite (the *-a-a- < *-e-e- still scans
>as disyllabic in Avestan).

The "merely dialectal" was more a reflection on the attested
distribution of the hyperthematic subjunctive, rather than
on its composite/secondary character.

>>>There would have been a contrast between this *-o: and later
>>>contractions, or forms retaining a final consonant (even if the latter
>>>could be dropped in sandhi). One could compare the 1sg. ending with the
>>>animate thematic nom./acc.du. *-o:, if from analogical *-o-e. The Baltic
>>>development is the same.
>>
>>
>> For me, that's another compelling reason to believe that the
>> dual ending does not in fact come from *-o-e.
>
>The behaviour of vowels in open auslaut is often different from the
>behaviour of the same vowels before a consonant. We have significantly
>different environments in *-e-e-t and *-o-o or *-o-e, and we can't
>expect the same behaviour of contracted vowels in both cases on an a
>priori basis. The possibility I'm arguing for is that word-final *-o-V
>was reduced to monosyllabic *-o: already in the protolanguage, which is
>precisely why the duals in *-o: and the 1sg. *-o: lost their
>transparency early and are so hard to analyse.

For me, the dual in -o: is clearly *-oh3. The *h3 has a
rounding efect on the locative suffix *-i in *-oi(H)-h3-i >
*-ojju(m) (> Grk. -oiiun), and the Sanskrit alternation -a:
~ -a:u is also best explained by a rounded laryngeal. Skt.
GL -ayo:s (*-oyHous) also reqires the presence of a
laryngeal, as do the thematic neuter ending *-oiH and the
athematic ending *-iH.

The odd form is laryngeal-less -e (actually: *-ye, as shown
by Greek osse < *okW-ye). My explanation is that it comes
from a lengthened variant (in posttonic position) of the
dual ending *-iH > *-i:H > *-ye:H, with loss of the
laryngeal after the long vowel, and subsequent shortening of
unstressed *-e:.


=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...