From: tgpedersen
Message: 63624
Date: 2009-03-20
> > > Anyway, here's my version.BTW, I propose that those three particles are from that ar-/ur-language which seems to be the maternal substrate, so to speak, of IE and FU. That would explain the embarrassingly similar person and number inflection in verbs (outside of 3rd person). It *is* possible to inherit such particles from a substrate, if the new language doesn't lend itself willingly (doesn't have the requisite constructions/particles) you insist on dragging into the new language (because it's so bizarrely different from your own that you don't 'get' it's constructions). I remember reading an article on the use of the Chines particle 'lah' in Singapore English, but now I forgot all the details.
> > >
> > > PIE verb stems were originally also nominal (there might
> > > have been nominalizing now lost suffix). To nominal
> > > elements, thus also to verb stems, could be added the three
> > > deictic particles PPIE 'nu' "at me",
> > > 'sa' "at thee" and 'ta' "at
> > > him/her/it".
> >
> > Kinda Celtic looking
>
> 'Nu', 'sa' and 'ta' are conjunctions in Hittite. The Armenian
> demonstratives are based on n- , s- and d- (strangely, so are those
> of Estonian and "now" is 'nüüd'). The idea of a personal participle
> is from Finnish. Hungarian nouns are inflected like verbs for
> number and person.
> > > The latter, in PIE -tó-, gave theTorsten
> > > impersonal 3sg preterite. PIE forms presents from that by
> > > adding either -i or -r, I suspect both are the postposition
> > > *en, so that present forms are originally participial, cf
> > > French 'en parlant ...', which by some creolizing
> > > stage became finite, cf. those sub-standard Englishes which
> > > leave out the copula in the progressive tenses, making -ing
> > > a finite suffix.