Re: PIE -*C-presents

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal <miguelc@...>
wrote:

>
> On Sat, 23 Feb 2008 00:35:42 -0000, "tgpedersen"
> <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
> >
> >> >> It is also restricted to the third person.
> >> >
> >> >And according to Burrows and Jasanoff, so was the s-aorist,
> >> >which was the line of readoning I tried to carry on.
> >>
> >> My point was that it's a much more recent formation (as also
> >> witnessed by the fact that it's restricted to Indo-Iranian).
> >
> >I don't get that line of reasoning. Why can't it be a sole survival
> >instead?
>
> It's the most economical explanation. Furthermore, there is
> no trace in IE of an inherited "passive" category.

I think that is actually to be read as: "It's the most economical
explanation because there is no trace in IE of an inherited "passive"
category", since you provide no other reason why that assumption is
the most economical. Please object if you think otherwise.

> An impersonal passive also exists in Celtic, but formally it
> has nothing to do with the impersonal passive aorist in
> Indo-Iranian. It is generally considered to be a Celtic
> innovation (built out of remnants of the old hi-conjugation
> middle). The Sanskrit form could in principle be the lone
> survival of *something else*, but not of an aorist passive.

That's right, it is a nominal form, thus a participle. It never left
that pre-stage to a true verbal form (as eg. in Slavic); only
formally, by the grammarians, it was categorized as a verbal form of a
defective paradigm.

>
> >> >> Furthermore, the *-s in
> >> >> the 3pl. is added to the verbal plural morpheme *-en >
> >> >> *-(e)r, not to any nominal plural. If the precursor of the
> >> >> s-aorist was ever a nominal form, it had already become a
> >> >> purely verbal form by the time of PIE.
> >> >
> >> >And that might be exactly why it was being mechanically applied to
> >> >the plural by analogy of the singular?
> >>
> >> I don't understand.
> >
> >If the 3sg had -s (no other ending at first) the way to construct a
> >plural for it might be to add -s to an ending imported from the 3pl
> >perfect?
>
> Yes, that would be the way to construct a verbal plural. The
> way to construct a plural out of a root-noun acting as
> passive participle would be to add *-es.

You assume your usual theory: you're right, I'm wrong. But I never
denied that the 3sg would at some stage develop in the native
Sprachgefühl from a nominal to a verbal form, I think only then was
the 3pl 'invented'.


Torsten