On 2007-07-05 20:55, tgpedersen wrote:
> The *-sm- > *-zm- part follows from you assumption, so is not
> permissible as an example. We might as well have *-sm- > *-mm- directly.
I wonder. While *-sm- is normally preserved as such in Germanic, the
assimilation to *-mm- is regular in low stress words such as *h1esmi or
pronominal forms (like dat.sg. *to-sm-o(:)i > *þammai).
> 'sind' might have -nd from other 3pl's where it's from PIE *-´nt(i),
> ie. a stressed syllable.
>
> Non licet.
The problem is, no present form has ever been accented on the final *-i
in any type of conjugation. And as *h1senti was disyllabic, the _only_
stressable syllable was the initial. It _should_ have become PGmc.
*sinþi, but somehow we always get reflexes of *sinði even in those
languages which otherwise generalised the oxytone variant -- like OE,
which has pres. pl. -aþ < *-a:þ < *-aNþ as if always from *-ó-nti EXCEPT
in the conjugation of 'to be', where the plural is <sind>. The form must
have seemed so obscure to the Anglo-Saxons that they sometimes attached
an extra plural ending to it (<-on>, borrowed from the preterite). To
sum up, it seems the *t > *þ in *h1senti was affected by VL, and having
_no stress at all_ was the only way in which the word could have
deserved such a treatment.
Piotr