Re: [tied] Thematic root aorist

On 2006-07-17 15:48, Andrew Jarrette wrote:

> And I suppose you would include here <çaye> "lies". But this has
> full grade, not zero grade like *wid-é. Perhaps <stave> has the
> reduced form of the full lengthened grade of a Narten Root, so
> perhaps for non-Narten roots the equivalent formation would have
> zero grade, but I haven't found any examples of zero grade in such
> middle formations, at least in the aorist in Sanskrit (though the
>

present has zero grade in athematic verbs, albeit with the Sanskrit

> ending <-te>, not *<-a> from *-é. But we are talking here about the
> origin of thematic _aorist_ forms in Sanskrit, not present forms).
> So what is this *wid-é you hypothesize?

Sorry. My example indeed involves a Narten present, and as such doesn't
illustrate the accent shift and ablaut alternation I was talking about.
Here's a better one: Skt. 3sg. active dógdHi 'milks' (PIE *dHéugH-ti),
3pl. dugHanti (*dHugH-énti) , etc., 3sg. middle duhé (RV) 'gives milk'
(*dHugH-éi), beside innovated dugdHe (as if from *dHugH-tói), 3pl. duhré
~ duhaté ~ duhraté (analogy going on and on). There is no reason why a
root aorist should have behaved differently, except that it would have
had no final tense-marker *-i or *-r. The absence of precise examples in
Sanskrit is due to the recessive character (and therefore general
rarity), of the t-less middle. Aorist middles of this type received an
analogical ending borrowed from their active counterparts: *ávida >
ávidat, more or less as in the <duhr(at)é> example, but earlier (before
the time of the oldest Indic texts).

Piotr
_________________

Yes, thanks for elaborating, but my question is:  is <duhé> "gives milk" an aorist form?  It sounds like it has present meaning (and I said that I had been able to find zero grade in athematic presents, but not in athematic aorists).  Also, you say the aorist middle *ávida > <ávidat>, but I thought <ávidat> was an active form (wouldn't the middle have been *<ávidata>, like the aorist middle <ásicata>?). 

 I'm starting to wonder whether I misunderstood what you originally said.  Perhaps you were saying that *wid-é was a present middle formation.  But I know  that we were talking about the origin of the aorist forms <ávidat>, etc., so it was natural for me to infer that you were presenting *wid-é as an aorist middle form, not present.  Which did you mean?

Andrew