From: Patrick Ryan
Message: 39987
Date: 2005-09-14
----- Original Message -----
From: "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, September 12, 2005 6:48 AM
Subject: Re: [tied] Re: IE thematic presents and the origin of their
thematic vowel
> Rob wrote:
>
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:
>
> > That was going to be my next point. :) The so-called tudáti-type is
> > then, in origin, nothing more than the subjunctive of a root durative.
> > However, there is again no formal distinction between root duratives
> > and root aorists, so their subjunctives should also be formed
> > identically.
>
> My gut feeling is that the durative/punctual contrast is not terribly
> fundamental in historical terms, just like the contrast of tense.
***
Patrick:
In the present state of our knowledge, all I can offer also is 'gut feeling'
but based on comparative evidence, primarily from Sumerian where it is very
transparent, I believe the distinction between progressive and
non-progressive is fundamental - for PIE as well. For a verbal idea that is
durative, a progressive marker (non-progressive is the unmarked of the pair)
is redundant but for a verbal idea that is punctual, the progressive marker
is, in effect, an iterative. 'I am hitting him', for example. I think
progressive was marked by a shift of stress-accent from the root-syllable:
C'VC, non-progressive; CV'CV, progressive. In my opinion, this is the origin
of the verbal thematic vowel. I think we must very careful in our employment
of terms like "present" or "aorist" since these are really tense
designations.
***
The
> inherently "present" or "aorist" value of a verb was a function of its
> meaning, so that it tended to be used in certain contexts, accompanied
> by certain adverbs, etc., but didn't have to be specially marked for
> aspect. There were, however, some secondary Aktionsart markers that
> gradually came to be used in the forming of "default" presents and
> aorists, replacing such aspectually ambiguous formations as root verbs
> and reduplications. The most important of them (apart from the special
> case of nasal presents) are the athematic *-s- of inchoative stems and
> the thematic *-jé/ó- that formed derived duratives. If Jens is right
> about iterative *-sk^é/ó- being a combination of the two, we get a neat
> symmetrical system. I'm not sure about the original function of
> root-vowel lengthening.
***
Patrick:
I do not think that athematic -*s is inchoative rather I think it is here a
singulative marker, properly used with durative verbal ideas to create a
'point in time' rather than the 'points in time' that a durative verbal idea
entails. This can apply equally well to the beginning of the duration
(inceptive) or its conclusion (perfective): "I set out" or "I arrive" as
nuances of "I come".
So, I do not think that any verb as "ambiguous" as to aspect: it was either
fundamentally durative or fundamentally punctual. A problem is that *CVC is
semantically ambiguous since it could derive from *CeC, *CaC, or *CoC, and
any of these could have been inherently durative or punctual so we sometime
find verbs like *bher- that are actually the PIE result of two earlier but
different pre-PIE verbs, here "carry" (durative) and "bring" (punctual).
Thematic -*ye/o is really -*eye/o, an addition of *Hey- ('go') to the
root-stem, signifying not progressive but rather irrealis (and future): "He
is, was, will be about to do it."
I was, at first, very attracted to Jens' explanation of -*sk^ as a
combination of -*s (singulative) and -*[e]ye/o (irrealis) until I identified
*k^(h)e(i)-, 'fast', in roots meaning 'work'; I now think it likelier that
this provides an iterative nuance to a singulative modified inherently
durative verbal root.
Root vowel lengthening is, I believe, best explained as a result of
compensation for an originally long final vowel: *CVCV: becomes *CV:C when
roots were mandatorily made in *CVC form.
***
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.
>
> Piotr
***
Patrick:
On this, it is a little more difficult to comment without getting further
beyond pre-PIE but I will only comment that these "durative" Narten roots
derive from intransitive verbal ideas originally; and 'intransitives' are
very frequently 'durative' in verbal idea.
I am _not_ saying that Piotr is wrong in anything he has stated above - if
one allows only PIE evidence into the discussion - but expanding beyond that
to what I believe are related languages changes the probabilities somewhat.
***