Re: IE thematic presents and the origin of their thematic vowel

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...>
wrote:

> Rob wrote:
>
> > Is there any verbal root which has both forms? (I ask because,
> > so far, it seems that the answer is "no". For example, there is
> > no word *bhe:r to contrast with *bho:r.)
>
> Off the top of my head, I could quote Gk. sko:ps 'scops owl, _Otus
> scops_' < *spo:k^-s vs. *spe:k^-s 'watcher, observer'. Animal names
> meaning 'a critter that frequently ..." tend to have o-vocalism,
> cf. Gk. pto:ks 'hare'.

Yet does *spe:ks mean 'one who is watching now' or 'one who
frequently watches'? Is it even meaningful to make such a
distinction here?

Are there any other roots with both apparent types?

> > I would rather say that those two forms were coined at different
> > stages in IE's development, *dxWté:r being older and *déxWto:r
> > being younger.
>
> Based on what?

Based on different stages of the language, as I said. There may have
been some semantic differentiation along the lines of what you were
saying, but I think what set things in motion was the desire to keep
derived forms "close to their roots".

> To my mind, the distinction is parallel to that found in
> *p&2- té:r 'father' (< *'natural, constant protector') vs.
> *páh2s-to:r 'herdsman, shepherd' (< 'protecting now and then, when
> on duty'), with durative *//peh2-// vs. punctual *//pe:h2-s-//.

Yet I thought long vowels were not subject to laryngeal "coloring",
so we should expect *pe:sto:r here. Of course, that is exactly what
we don't see.

On another note, I do agree that *pex- 'protect' seems to be a root
durative and so would form a sigmatic aorist *pe:xs-.

- Rob