--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Rasmus Underbjerg Pinnerup
<pinnerup@...> wrote:
>
> Dear Cybalist-members
>
> The forms of the Latin gerund and gerundive seem quite alike and thus
> I would assume that they somehow have a common origen, but at the
> same
> time they have quite different meanings and I don't find it readily
> apparent how those meanings (one passive, one active) have developed
> from the same form. I've searched a bit but haven't really been able
> to find anything on the matter, so I'm hoping that someone here in
> this learned forum may be able to tell me how it all fits together.
>
Kaere Rasmus U Pinnerup
The Latin gerund-forms are difficult for the comparatists. To quote
Szemerényi in his Einführung 1980 p.296 : "... ein Fall wo wieder
einmal die Ohnmacht des Einzelphilologen klar zutage tritt, wenn
der Sprachvergleicher auch keine Antwort geben kann. ... "
Vittore Pisani in his Grammatica Latina storica e comparativa 1974
§249 has dared to point to Vedic infinitives in -adhyai
(from a possible -n.dh-).
So academically scientifically that was as far as one could reach
some decades ago.(We might get an updating from the forum if we are
lucky !)
The advantage of this forum, however, is its freedom to make
scenarios without constraints and prestige (unless you stray too
far away into UFO's and extraterrestrials).
My megalomaniac thoughts about the gerund-forms (I consider them
inseparable) would be something like this :
don't bother about passive and active ! think about locality and
direction instead : being in or for an action !
*en- + *-dh- + nominal ending such as dative *-ai :
*bher-n.-dh-ai -> ferendi:, 'to bear' or 'for bearing', 'til at baere'
The element -dh- might even be *dh-h1 ; the 'deed' of bearing.
Lautgesätzlich both a verbal noun -ndh- and the present participle
-nt- would render Germanic -nd-.
In Swedish a direct translation of Ars Amandi to Älska-nd-ets Konst
is possible and I can't (until corrected) see any impediment to this
being a complete parallel. In Danish I think 'Elskens Kunst' would
have been theoretically possible.
Med venlig/vänlig hilsen/hälsning (or: vänligt hälsande ?)
Lars Lundberg
PS. Suffixes -n(de), and -ing seem to be quite interchangeable:
Da. erinring, Sw. erindran(de) ; -else is also a part of this
interchangeability.