--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Jens Elmegård Rasmussen <elme@...> wrote:
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@> wrote:
> >
> > So the pret. frawarðiða "ruined" is from frawarði-ðiðe: "ruined
> > *does*", not "ruined did"?
>
> No, it's the imperfect (without an augment, i.e. properly the
> injunctive), the very form the language itself uses as the preterite
> (originally only of the present aspect).
I can't find a proper definition of the semantics of the injunctive in
Barrow's 'The Sanskrit Language'. The impression I get is that
whatever imperfect force it gets, it derives from the surroundings,
and that é- is the source of past meaning in the impf. and aorist.
> > Hm.
>
> Good point.
Thank you. How about this then:
I want to explain the preterites of all the Germanic weak classes as
derived from a nominal form of the verb, plus
(I *-i-, the stem, and therefore the old verbal noun (cf. Lat.
sci-licet etc) of the verb *ey- "do, make".
II *-ax, the individuating suffix, or
III *-e: (*-eh1), the instrumental suffix),
plus the perf. impersonal (later 3sg middle) suffix *-to (from *-dho,
I'll get back to that), which was constructed with a 'subject' in the
dative or instrumental (as in a mana kartam, or should I say, mana
karta construction), but later with the subject in the nominative and
inflected for congruence with the subject with the addition of the
present endings to the 3sg form.
Now this would explain why the Germanic weak preterite has present
endings *except* for the 3sg. How would you explain that fact with
your and/or the traditional model?
Torsten