Re: [tied] xW>v>w (was: -tlo- vs -tro-)

--- Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:

> On 2007-07-10 03:08, stlatos wrote:
>
> >> This word is trickier than that. With all other
> verb roots in Gk. the
> >> infinitive has <-men(ai)>
> >
> > Not Attic-Ionic and Arcado-Cypriot -(e)nai,
> which is the evidence
> > I'm using.
>
> Wrong wording on my part. I mean that the "West
> Greek" (Aeolic/Doric
> etc.) type of athematic infinitive in <-men(ai)>
> (also as reflected in
> Homeric Gk.) is found with all types of verb roots
> while <-wen(ai)> is
> attested _only_ in <dowenai> ~ <dou^nai>.

Why would one group show no verbs in -menai but happen to have one
in *-wenai?

That doesn't explain why w is found in all the other forms in
various languages, including the Cyp. verb in -ano:, as opt. duwanoi,
which can't be the result of an affix beginning with m.

> Of course
> analogy distorts the
> picture: -nai is found after verb roots with final
> *h3, like <didónai,
> gno:^nai>, and so is <men(ai)>: <dómen, gno:^menai>.
> I don't know what
> the latest learned opinions on the origin of
> <-(e-)nai> are, but isn't
> it thinkable that it developed out of a reduced
> variant of *-m(e)n-
> (*-mn-ai)?

It doesn't seem likely to me: PIE had words ending in *-etos,
*-elos, *-etlos, *-enos, and even *-enwos. My take on their relation
and meaning doesn't matter; it seems certain they existed. One case
ending became an infinitive, *-enxa(i), among others; they mixed in
Sanskrit and Greek dialects to various degrees.

The Greek inf. seem to show *+en added to nouns: *bheros >>
*bheresen; *bhermn. >> *bhermnen > *bhermen by n-n dissimlation. The
-ai marker was added to -men (and many others in dialects) after it
was abstracted from the inf.