Re: [tied] The idea of the root *h1eg^ ("I", "to speak")

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ryan" <proto-language@...>
wrote:

>
> ***
>
> For whatever it may be worth, the analysis I favor for *Heg^- is *?

é- (earlier *?a), demonstrative,'this' + *gé, 'male'.

>
> Perhaps the nonconnectibility of *tu- with any root

suggesting 'hear' (which we might reasonably expect in the second
person as a counterpart to 'speak(er)' in the first person) suggests
an alternative explanation.

>
>
> Patrick
>
> ***

Maybe a distant example of how this seemingly intuitive counterpoint
DOESN'T play out is in certain governmental structures where there
is a "speaker," but no "listener".
Still, you make a point - the logical idea would be to the *tu- form
to be listener. HOWEVER, that form and variants on it are used
throughout the second person singular, while heg^- is unique to the
first person singular nominative and emphatic. It seems an
EXCEPTION, while *tu- seems regular. MOREOVER, you compare the
Uralic system, and you have the 1st person *m- based 1st person
singular pronouns, which along with the *t- based 2nd person
singular (explainable by the fact that Uralic *s can sometimes turn
to *t), suggests something.
My first thoughts were that the "pre-*heg^" first-person singular
nominative and emphatic would be mased on a form closer to the *m -
based forms from the other cases of this pronoun; i.e., the
Tocharian and Hittite may actually hold some early PIE relic which,
after these two groups split off, was replaced with another form.
My theory is that maybe it was some kind of "polite first person"
that overtook the common one. Aren't there such things in Japanese
or in other languages?

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Piotr Gasiorowski<mailto:gpiotr@...>
> To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com<mailto:cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Saturday, November 11, 2006 3:58 PM
> Subject: Re: [tied] The idea of the root *h1eg^ ("I", "to speak")
>
>
> On 2006-11-11 05:40, C. Darwin Goranson wrote:
>
> > Looking in the new book by Jim P. Mallory and Douglas Adams, I

moticed

> > that there are two identical roots, one meaning "I" (first

person

> > singular nominative) and one meaning "to speak", both with the

form

> > *h1eg^-.
> >
> > Could this mean that the word for "I" grew out of an expression
> > meaning "the speaker", as a roundabout alternative to a form

beginning

> > with "m"?
> > Or is this word meaning "to speak" originally from something

like "to

> > extend oneself"?
>
> I like it! Given the fact that the 1sg. pronoun has verbal-

looking

> extensions (*h1eg^o: ~ *h1eg^om) one could even spaculate that

it

> developed out of something like 'I (should) say'. *h1ég^- was

apparently

> a root aorist, so *h1ég^-e/o- (with secondary or primary

endings) would

> have been the corresponding subjunctive.
>
> Piotr
>