From: tgpedersen
Message: 45869
Date: 2006-08-28
>Correct me if I'm wrong; I understand Kortlandt's version
> --- 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.
>