Re: *san,W- , "judged"? "rite"?, "journey"?

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "dgkilday57" <dgkilday57@> wrote:
> >
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@> wrote:
> > >
> > > [...]
> > >
> > > Normally, since we assume reasoning in general goes from the
> > > concrete to the abstract, we assume similarly in historical
> > > linguistics that in the cases where a particular word has both a
> > > concrete and an abstract sense that the concrete sense was the
> > > first, ie original one.
> > >
> > > That's not justified generally. The verb *sekW- is assumed to
> > > have two original senses, both concrete, "follow" and "see". But
> > > an abstract sense unites them, something like "investigate",
> > > discovering the truth about a particular matter.
> > >
> > > Latin sequitur could thus be understood both as "it follows
> > > (that)" and "it is seen (that)".
> > >
> > > The deponent verb sequor "follows" now suddenly makes sense as a
> > > passive of the PIE verbal stem *sekW-, or rather as an impersonal
> > > (which was the original function of the 3rd sg. passive) "one
> > > sees that".
> >
> > P-Italic has a distinct impersonal, Umbrian <ferar> 'one must
> > bear', etc. In Q-Italic this impersonal has been replaced by the
> > 3sg. pass., "precario itur" etc., but that is not the latter's
> > original function.
>
> It's my contention that PIE originally had only an impersonal, by nature consisting of 3sg and 3pl, and that this was supplemented later (except in Sabellic) by constructing 1st and 2nd forms, to form a full medio-passive paradigm.

My view is that Old PIE had an impersonal pronominal marker *r. which combined with other pronominal markers to form a true passive voice. This was likely before the origin of PIE ablaut, so I write the impersonal as *bhr.-r. 'one bears', the 3sg. pass. as *bhr.-t-r. 'one bears him/her' = 'he/she is borne', the 3pl. pass. as *bhr.-n.t-r. 'one bears them' = 'they are borne'. A striking morphological parallel is found in Middle Egyptian, where the impersonal element <.tw> (regarded as an old indefinite pronoun 'one, someone') is followed by the ordinary suffix-pronouns to create a passive verbal paradigm. This is, of course, independent of what I have hypothesised for Old PIE. The Egyptian marking sequence is VSO (as is the neutral order in ordinary sentences) while the PIE sequence is VOS, since the impersonal *r. is the subject of the passive formation.

In my view Italic inherited both the /r./-impersonal and the passive based on it, but the passive fell together with the middle, and only the 3sg. and 3pl. true passive forms survived. Latin has a mixed bag of passive, middle, and double-marked forms in its paradigm. Both Oscan and Umbrian have the old impersonal, but Latin replaced it with the 3sg. pass. as noted, "in consilium itur" and the like. I am not sure whether the archaic <estur> represents a true impersonal (i.e. *h1es(t)r. with epenthetic /t/), but it seems more likely that it originated in double-marked perfect passives (for such double-marking cf. "res coepta est geri").

> > Also, note that Lat. <secundus>, OL <sequondos>, means '(connected
> > with) following', hence 'second'. The sense 'follow' is not
> > specific to the mediopassive usage of the root.
>
> Ernout-Meillet
> 'secundus, -a, -um: ancien participe de sequor avec la forme exceptionnelle en -undus, cf. oriundus, proprement "qui suit", "qui n'offre pas de résistance"'
>
> The -undus participles are formally similar to gerundives, which traditionally are considered passives. If Latin sequor is the result of splitting in half the original paradigm of *sekW-, *sekWond- would have come with that passive half.

Gerundives acquired passivity in the early history of Latin; <secundus> and <oriundus> show that the -ndus suffix was not originally passive.

> > > If we also assume that formally pronouncing that truth one found
> > > was part of the same act designated by the verb, then even within
> > > Latin sequor matches up perfectly with the other, non-deponent
> > > forms of *sekW- in Latin: *én-sekWàm -> inquam "I say",
> > > *én-sekWèt -> inquit "he says" to make up a full active/passive
> > > paradigm for the verb in Latin).
> >
> > Actually, *en-sekW- is reflected in the Latin imperative <insece>,
> > used by Livius Andronicus to render its Greek cognate <ennepe>
> > (Andra moi ennepe, mousa, polutropon ktl., Od. 1:1), and <inquam>
> > comes from a distinct root.
>
> Pokorny
> '2. sekw- "bemerken, sehen; zeigen",
> ursprüngl. "wittern, spüren" und (jünger) "sagen";
> identisch mit 1. sekw-.
> ...
> lat. i:nseque "sag an" (= gr. énnepe),
> auch i:nsece, c verschleppt aus Formen wie:
> insectio:ne:s "narrationes",
> insexit "dixerit";
> inquam, inquis, -it "sage ich, sagst du, sagt(e) er" (inquam Konjunktivform *en-skwa:m "möcht' ich sagen";
> inquit ursprgl. themat. Aorist *en-skwe-t wie eni-spei~n);'
>
> and Ernout-Meillet
> 'inquam, inquit: "dis-je, dit-il",
> employé en incise quand on rapporte ses propres paroles ou les paroles de quelqu'un; souvent après un mot sur lequel on veut attirer l'attention de l'auditeur ou du lecteur; notamment dans des anaphores. En dehors de inquam, inquit, on rencontre aussi mais plus rarement:
> inquis (class.), inquimus, inquitis, inquiunt;
> inquiat;
> inque, inquito: (Pl. Tér.);
> inqui:bat; inquie:s, -quiet;
> inquii:, inquisti:, cf. Kühner, Lat. Grann., 2e éd., I p.823.
> A basse époque, sur inquit, inquis s'est créée une 1re pers. inquiō (d'après aiō?) ou inquō; d'où inquiēns (Vulg.). La création même de ces formes, qui n'ont pas eu de vie véritable, montre que inquam avait cessé d'être employé. C'est surtout une forme de l'époque républicaine.
> Inquam a l'air d'un subjonctif dont le sens serait "veux-je dire". S'apparente sans doute à inseque, insece; v. ces mots. Pour le vocalisme, cf. hom. éspete (de *en-spete) à côté de ennépo:. Mais on ne voit pas comment *insquam aurait abouti à inquam.'
>
> say otherwise.

Yes they do, but the devil is hiding in that "on ne voit pas". A special phonetic law to explain a single word? And most of the forms belong to the fourth conjugation, but <inquam> (not *inquiam, which should parallel <audiam> if it is a Konjunktivform) is athematic. I prefer to see a distinct root, unless someone can provide other examples of the devil swiping /s/ in this position.

> > > (The senses are usually quoted as "I'd say" and "he'd say", ie.
> > > as subjunctives, but I think that since thematic stems are known
> > > to come from subjunctives, ie. subjunctives were characterized by
> > > being thematic, that characteristic feature must have arisen from
> > > the fact that subjunctives occur only in subordinate clauses, and
> > > in subordinate clauses adverbs which are free in main clauses
> > > merge with the verb, thus creating a stress pattern préfx-
> > > stem-ènd-i, as opposed to main clause stém-end-ì, and then
> > > unstressed syllables were lost (and sometimes analogically
> > > restored) which is why verbs in subordinate clauses have thematic
> > > vowels and secondary endings and those in main clauses have
> > > (rather: had) no thematic endings and primary endings).
> >
> > Are you talking about PIE or Proto-Italic or what?
>
> PIE.
>
> > In Italic the optative has fallen together with the subjunctive,
> > and we have plenty of examples of the independent subjunctive.
>
> ?? How is the optative relevant here?

It is relevant to the history of Italic, which I thought you might have been talking about.

DGK