Re: Subjunctive and Thematic Present

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

>
> On 2006-08-16 18:26, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> >> but would you say that there is a markedness
> >> contrast e.g. between <wek-mi, wek-ti, wek-zi>
> >
> > You mean <wek-mi, wek-si, wek-zi> ?
>
> Oops, I do, of course.
>
> >> and <wek-un, wek-ta, wek-ta>?
> >
> > Has anybody pointed out the similarity of the latter
> > to Ch.Sl. aorist (in some verbs)
> > <-sU (< *-som), -tU, -tU> (minus the -s- of the
> > s-aorist stem, of course)?
>
> Yes, it's an interesting parallel. In Slavic, the 2/3sg.
> fell together for phonological reasons before the extension
> of "endingless" aorists with *-t-, which motivated the
> spread of the 3sg. extension to the 2sg. as well.

A different angle on that phenomenon is to assume that
*-tV, both in its "home base", 3rd sg. pres, and in
Hittite and Slavic 2nd and 3rd sg past, is in its origin
an enclitic version of the demonstrative particle *tV,
which at a time slightly preceding PIE still had
enough independence to be used as a "clarifier" to
forms that for phonological reasons had become obscure.

> In Hittite, the mechanism must have been somewhat different,
> since the 2sg. -s (still preserved in Old Hittite) and the
> 3sg. -t had not merged phonologically. Both persons acquired
> the same form also in the preterite of the hi-conjugation
> (as -s or -sta) and in the preterite middle.

Or they were not different, and Old Hittite 2nd sg -s and
3rd sg -t were analogically reintroduced.

It is interesting that the Slavic aorist 2nd 3rd sg -tU
occurs only in the verbs that have ppp's in -t- (not -n-).
Actually, the term 'past participle passive' is a misnomer,
it should really be 'past participle absolutive' since
with intransitive verbs the sense is active. That means
that a sentence of a type <subject> <verb>-tV might be
understood in the same way as the common Slavic past
construction with an original -l participle, the
difference morphologically only being one of ablaut
grade of root and suffix.


Torsten