Piotr:
> I'm not sure about the original function of
> root-vowel lengthening. The historically surviving
> "plain" Narten stems are all durative, but the same
> kind of alternation is found in the sigmatic
> aorist, so identically formed root aorists may have
> existed as well.
The more I think about it, I think I already have
rules to explain the Narten presents afterall.
I think the best route would be to derive them from
the earliest stages of early Late IE, right after
Syncope. Since the language at that time seems to
fight against all instances of -CCC within a given
syllable, one can understand how an MIE action noun
in the nominative like *wéida-sa would not become
**weids but rather *weid&s in eLIE with a preserved
*& to avoid excessive clustering. In the case of
another deverbal noun stem like *bera-sa however,
no rule would stop it from being reduced to nominative
*bHe:rs. The length here is via the process of
Clipping.
So I thinks: Hmmm...
By taking the nominative stems of these nouns
directly, we will get the same pattern we see of
thematic and Narten presents side-by-side: *weide-ti
and *bHe:r-ti. This makes semantic sense as well
if *weid&-s simply meant "knowing" and *bHe:rs
meant "carrying". Naturally then, a durative form
could spring from this without awkwardly blaming it
on the subjunctive.
= gLeN
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