Rob:
> The fact that we have e-grade prefix and o-grade
> root in the stative seems to suggest that the
> reduplication pattern was formed during the
> period of distinctive pitch accent.
I don't think this suggests anything. The perfect
reduplication can go back to MIE in my theory
with the form *CeCáC- without problems.
> Verbal reduplication suggests iterativity.
Yes, it can but more generally (in both nouns and
verbs) reduplication conveys plurality -- Plurality
of objects or the plurality of an action.
> It is not hard to go from, say, "runs (and) runs"
> to "runs around".
Agreed.
> Basically, what I'm saying is that reduplication
> became aligned with the stative conjugation once it
> began to be reinterpreted as a perfect(ive) aspect.
We agree! Except that I reconstruct the perfect
reduplication back to IndoTyrrhenian. I don't think
it can be recent because I can't see how else
reduplication is applied to something that, on the
IE level, doesn't seem to convey 'plurality' in any
way, shape or form. The perfect is the resultant state
of an action. It's by nature momentaneous and
singular.
So the perfect reduplication must be much older than
the present reduplication for that fact alone.
On the result of *ber-as-:
> In either case, syncope would reduce the form to
> *bars-.
No. You misapplied Syncope. In my theory, accented
*e remains as it is. The first syllable is accented
here. So it would only be fair to say that you'd
expect **bers- if the added rule of lengthening
hadn't applied.
= gLeN
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