Piotr:
> Well, the label "present", when applied to a type
> of stem in PIE _stem_ is a matter of Aktionsart
> (durative/progressive or iterative/continuative)
> or aspect (imperfective) rather than tense.
Then we agree on that. Just had to check :)
> You are in favour of pairing *s-aorists with
> *sk^e-presents, aren't you?
Yes, but I'm not sure whether you misunderstood me
or not.
The morpheme *-ske- is, afaic, a composite of
the sigmatic aorist and particle *ge. However,
the accentuation is from the _thematic_ aorist.
> In general, non-suffixed present and aorist stems
> (whether simple, with partial reduplication or
> intensive) are nearly identical in terms of
> structure.
If 'non-suffixed' here means 'athematic' then we're
on the same wavelength. That similarity is what
makes me feel that the athematic stems are originally
aorist and that originally, inherent duratives were
given *-e-. That seems to make the root aorist the
unmarked part of this earlier system, interestingly
enough.
> This means that the present/aorist contrast was
> purely lexical and not expressed by morphological
> or phonological means, [...]
I don't think that this is a necessary conclusion
that we can make until it is certain that the
durative in *-e- is synonymous with the subjunctive
morpheme.
> There are two interesting points of difference: we
> have simple Narten presents (athematic) and simple
> barytone thematic presents, while in the aorist
> system the use of Narten alternations is restricted
> to the sigmatic stems and the barytone thematic
> type is missing altogether.
The exact origin of Narten presents still stumps
the hell out of me. However, I wouldn't call the
sigmatic aorists "Narten alternations". There, the
aorist's vowel has been lengthened by the same
sound change that has caused lengthening in the
nominatives in *-s. 'Clipping', a corollary of
Syncope. It works for all fricatives, like *-x, too.
> My suspicion is that the barytone thematic type
> (*bHér-e-) is the subjunctive of the lost
> pre-sigmatic Narten aorist, [...]
I think saying "pre-sigmatic" here is untenable.
I link the sigmatic aorist with Tyrrhenian *-as-e,
seen in Etruscan (-asa), EteoCypriot (-as(a)i) and
Minoan (-asi). I similarly link the IE *n-infix
with Tyrrhenian *-an-e.
Even if you don't appreciate the connections I make
between IE and Tyrrhenian and wish to take the
stricter internal reconstruction route, you still
have to contend with these tasty grammatical
parallels:
*-no- <=> *-n-
*-to- <=> *-s-
Nope, I don't think there ever was a 'pre-sigmatic'
stage in IE, unless we're going back many millenia.
Outside of IndoTyrrhenian, there is a link between
a marked 'aorist-like' morpheme *-as- and verbs
marked with *-ta in Uralic (connectable by way of
the word-final 'IndoTyrrhenian Sibilantization' rule
if we reconstruct Proto-Steppe *-at).
> The relation is exactly like that between the
> present *sté:w- and its subjunctive *stéw-e-.
What this looks like to me is that *-he- has been
added in the subjunctive *stew-he-, originally with
accent on the suffix, therefore explaining the
shortening of the once unstressed root vowel.
And if we are really talking about plain ol' *-e-
in the subjunctive, why would we theorize
*swo:p-eye- > *swo:p-ye- and yet also *ste:w-e- >
*stew-e- then?
= gLeN
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