Re: [tied] Re: PIE i- and u-stems again

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 47528
Date: 2007-02-18

On 2007-02-17 10:39, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote:

> I don't think so: the "lengthening" of the thematic vowel
> (i.e. e > o) took place before zero grade, as shown for
> instance by *-o-syo < *-%-esyo. If the full grade of the
> suffix was *-eh1(i)- (and I don't believe in suffixes of the
> shape -C-), a thematic vowel before it would have gone to
> /o/.

I beg to differ here. The way I see it, a suffix of the shape *-eC-
would have been realised as *-C- postvocalically well before the rise of
the "normal" zero grade. Examples of pronominal instr.sg. like Goth.
hWe: suggest *kWe-h1 to me, and as gen.sg. *kWesjo can hardly be
anything but *kWe-sjo, I'd say that the stem-final vowel was originally
realised as *-e- in such cases, the shift to *-o- in substantives being
analogical.

> I'm also not aware of a formal distinction anywhere
> between deverbative essive/fientives (e.g. sêdêti) and
> deadjectival essive/fientives (e.g. slabêti). Is there?

Probably not. But what does it prove?

> As I think I said earlier here, I would reconstruct the
> original paradigm of these verbs as athematic (as still
> preserved in Lithuanian and Aeolic Greek):
>
> present: aorist:
> *-éih1-mi *-éh1-m
> *-éih1-si *-éh1-s
> *-éih1-ti *-éh1-t
> *-h1i-més *-h1i-mé
> *-h1i-té *-h1i-té
> *-h1i-énti *-h1i-é:r
>
> Most languages have thematized the type, Slavic generalizing
> *-eih1-e/o- in the present stem and *-eh1- in the infinitive
> and aorist stem. The type is still basically athematic in
> Baltic, with generalized *-h1i- in the present, *-eh1- in
> the infinitive. Greek generalized *-eh1- to the present
> (Aeolic <phile:mi>, thematized in Attic <phileo:>). In
> Sankrit it may have been 3pl. *-h1i-ánti, reinterpreted as
> thematic ye/yo-stem *-h1-yá-nti, which led to *-(h1)yo:,
> *-(h1)yesi, etc.

I can't say I understand the structure of this paradigm, and in
particular the shifty *i, and I can't believe anything so odd could be
original. I'd sooner accept an athematic by-form of the present stem
without the *-je-, i.e. *-e-h1-mi ~ *-e-h1-jo: (similarly for
deadjectival factitives in *-a-h2(-je)-?).

Piotr