--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
> > If we assume a similar pattern for PIE, we could explain why some
> > Germanic verbs follow the *< o, o:, o:, o> and some follow the
> > *< e, o, zero, zero> pattern. Note BTW that eg in Russian there
> > are verbs that stress the prefix in some forms but not in others,
> > eg.
> > prodát', prodám etc, but
> > pródal, prodalá etc
> > pródan, prodaná etc
> > A verb type like that in PIE would explain the isolated *o
> > of the pret.sg. of the *< e, o, zero, zero> inflection.
> >
>
> Maybe there's an insight hiding somewhere in the fact that those
> forms of that Russian verb which stress the preverb are adjectival
> in nature, as are the forms of the PIE verb which have o-grade
> (perf.sg., tómos/tomós, base of the iterative causative verbal
> derivative). There's also a tendency, at least in the Germanic
> verbs, for the adjectival forms of prefixed verbs to stay united
> (ausgesetzt, Aussetzung etc) more than the finite form (setzt aus
> etc).
Often presents are durative, preterites punctual. Does the fact that
the perfect doesn't have *e, thus no stress, come not from the fact
that it had a reduplication prefix, but that it had a reduplication
prefix *or* a preverb (eg. Latin) and that the reduplication prefix
was so to speak a phonological 'place-holder' for a preverb? That
would mean that preverbs made simple verbs punctual, ie. perfective,
as is the case in Slavic (and Latvian, preverb po-), so that that
Slavic specialty goes back to PIE (still, the perfective of c^itat
is proc^ital, not **c^ic^ital or the like).
So, preverbs would explain the *o of the preterite of Germanic
*< e, o, zero, zero> verbs and of the present and ppp of Class
VI *< o, o:, o:, o> verbs. But why do the latter have *o:,
lengthened o-grade in both sg and pl of the preterite? If one
goes for an explanation by stress alone, it means they must
have had the same position relative to the stressed syllable,
unlike what is the case in the 'normal', generally-unprefixed-
except-for-preterite case *< e, o, zero,zero>, and that position
can't have been the stressed syllable, which has *e, or the
one immediately after, which has *o; those bases are covered.
So how about the second syllable after the stress; let's
assume these preverb'ed verbs had reduplicaton too, in other
words *<preverb>´-<reduplication prefix>-Co:C, with stressed
preverb?
I've looked around to find out under what circumstances one
would expect lengthened o-grade, *o:, in PIE. The example
that occurs in most explanations on the net is Greek
éu-pato:r nom., éu-patora acc. which seems to fit, at
least for the first example.
Does anyone know of a better characterization of where to
expect lengthened o-grade, *o:, in PIE?
Torsten