Re: [tied] Re: IE thematic presents and the origin of their themati

Rob wrote:

> I agree. It seems to me, however, that the latter is older than the
> former, for it affects the accent. The question is, why doesn't
> there seem to be an equally old aorist derivation?

If the acrostatic accentuation of the sigmatic aorist is due to the
underlyingly long root vowel, such forms may be as old as anything in
PIE. The accent was originally mobile, but since the root vowel was
shortened rather than deleted in forms with desinential accent, it
remained full and attracted the accent later on.

> Regarding the sigmatic aorist, you're saying that it was originally
> inchoative in meaning? Could it be related to the neuter s-stems?

How could I know? ;-)

> In phonological terms, there is nothing in IE that seems to
> suggest /sj/ becoming /sk/, so I doubt that Jens is right.

I agree the phonological aspect of the whole thing is difficult, but in
morphological and functional terms the equation *-sk^e- = *-s- + *-je-
is just too attractive to be brushed aside.

> Yet there is a well-known phonological rule whereby (C)VCs(C)
> sequences become (C)V:Cs(C) ones.

Is there? You put the bracketed (C) here just to account for the
sigmatic aorist; otherwise such a rule (whose formulation should be
further refined in order to include at least the lengthening before
final *h2 as well) is only employed for explaining the lengthened vowels
of PIE nominatives.

> How common were the "plain" Narten stems in IE?

Not terribly common, which is quite understandable if we are dealing
with an archaic type of alternation that tended to be eliminated in
various ways already in the protolanguage. There are some further
complications that look even more puzzling, such as apparently
reduplicated stems with a Narten vowel in the reduplication syllable.
The clearest case is *te:tk^- (a.k.a. *tek^T- in "thorny" terms).

Piotr