On 2006-07-17 01:26, Andrew Jarrette wrote:
> Do you think you could provide a few examples of athematic aorist
> subjunctives with zero grade in attested languages? (I don't see
> where they fit in in Sanskrit grammar, for example.)
The historically attested subjunctives of athematic stems, whether
present (like *gWHén-e/o- and even *k^l.néw-e/o-) or aorist (like
*gWém-e/o-) have the e-grade. This is not what we would expect, given
the behaviour of Narten presents ans sigmatic aor. subjunctives (with a
short vowel, i.e. with the "weak" allomorph), but I don't know how to
explain this anomaly. The *gWHén-e-ti type could be analogical after the
Narten pattern, but why? Some kind of vr.ddhi, already in PIE? -- see
Hill (2003):
www.indogermanistik.lmu.de/VrddhiKonj.pdf
-- but again, why? It's one of the most vexing puzzles of PIE verb
morphology, as far as I'm concerned. However, the fact that "athematic"
subjunctives share this odd behaviour with simple thematic presents
strengthens the hypothesis that their origin is the same.
> I take it *weid-t is posited to explain Latin <vi:dit>, but again do
> you have any examples of the reflexes of the middle *wid-é in
> attested languages? (Again I don't see how these fit in in Sanskrit
> grammar, for example.)
Vedic preserves some archaic "statives" with -e (*-ai < *-e-i or *-o-i)
rather than -te (*-tai < *to-i), e.g. <stave> 'is praised'. With their
defective paradigm they are likely to represent an otherwise
restructured category, and are often explained as remnants of the
original middle, with endings practically identical with those of the
PIE perfect.
Analogical contamination in the middle system began already in PIE and
continued during the early history of the individual branches, hence the
frustratingly messy picture we get from the comparative evidence. If the
original 3g. middle ending was once *-e (alternating with zero), then in
thematic present stems we get *-o-0-r (thematic vowel + the zero
allomorph of *-e + present-tense *-r) --> *-or (e.g. *bhér-o-r). The
other attested variants (*bHér-e-to-r, *bHér-e-to-i) show the influence
of the corresponding active endings, and the use of *-o, *-to (pres.
*-o-r, *-to-r, *-to-i) also with athematic stems reflects further
analogical developments.
> You know, I've only just come to the realization that I don't know
> what the regular IE formation was for the aorist of plain thematic
> verbs. Can you tell me?
Simple thematic presents most often go with the sigmatic aorist:
*wég^H-e-ti : *wé:g^H-s-t. Why? I don't know for sure. Sigmatic aorists
are also often paired with *-sk^e/o- presents (*pr.k^-sk^é-ti :
*pré:k^-s-t), so perhaps they reflect the merger of two different types,
one with a lengthened vowel and the other with *-s-, into one
hypercharacterised formation? Or perhaps the late present *wég^H-e-ti
was back-formed from the regular aorist subjunctive *wég^H-s-e-t(i)
(Skt. váks.at(i)) through the deletion of the aorist marker *-s-? We
haven't got all the answers yet.
Piotr