Re: -s- and verbs

> If future *-s and aorist *-s is the same suffix, it must be
> significant that in Hittite and Tocharian it is confined to
> the 3sg. (in the ind.) and in Baltic the whole future seem
> to be built by adding endings to the 3sg,
>
> bú:siu, bú:si, bùs, bú:sime, bú:site
>
> in short, the -s is in auslaut in 3sg. One gets the impression
> from that isolation that it was some kind of impersonal.
> The Latin future is
>
> faxo:, faxis, faxit, faximus, faxitis, faxunt (vel. sím. ;-)
>
> With a little imagination, Latin might once have had a sole 3sg.
> *fax, cf fa:s "it is permitted", if interpreted as "it has been
> revealed", ie. that statement once arrived from "the other side",
> it suddenly became present, apparent.
>
> *bhw-ak-s -> fax, *bhw-ak -> *bhwax + *-s -> fa:s (*-ak -> *-ax
> is the factitive suffix)
>

It would be nice to know where the aorist/future *-s- came from,
and I have an idea.

The si-imperatives are supposedly from a haplologized 2sg. subj.
pres. in *-sesi. No one provides a reason why it haplologized.
Suppose however, that a 2sg subj. *X-si used as an imperative
was wrongfully analysed as an imperative *X-s-i of a stem
*X-s-. Now, the imperatives are always by nature ingressive-
inchoative; if you tell someone to be in a state, you tell
him to get into that state. 'Sit down!' means 'set yourself down',
'stand up' means 'get yourself into an upright position' etc.
Therefore, semantically the supposed stem *X-s- could mean
nothing but 'begin to X', which is exactly the semantics of
the aorist.

When the -s- was added to the stem of the present subjunctive,
the s-aorist subjunctive was created (that's where the supposed
haplologized *-sesi was from). Why the s-form also got
into the 3sg pret ind in Hittite and Tocharian, I'll have to
figure out.


Torsten