--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
> Therefore this is by memory and correct me if I'm wrong: In several
> IE languages, Tocharian among them, a new present has been formed by
> a suffix, one of which is *-sk-, leaving the old present in its
> former "peripheral" role as subjunctive, future etc.
> Torsten
*******
I know Greenberg isn't the favorite author of some members of
Cybalist, but his Indo-European and its Closest Relatives (2000)
devotes pages 206-209 to "Conative SK". He refers to Porzig (1927)
giving Tocharian <skai> to attempt as indicating the basic IE meaning,
with the inceptive (e.g. Latin <senesco>) a late development, and to
Brugmann for it being a composite of -S and -K. For F.-U. he refers
to Szinnyei (1910) "who reconstructed PFU *sk without positing a
meaning". Also Proto-Tungus, Chukchi and Yupik.
Maybe some more qualified than me should look at this.
Dan