From: dgkilday57
Message: 63674
Date: 2009-03-28
>All six sequences are known, so nothing should be ruled out a priori. Voiced aspirates are unusual too, but we always seem to go back to them, pace Prokosch, Gamkrelidze-Ivanov, etc.
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "dgkilday57" <dgkilday57@> wrote:
> >
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@> wrote:
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > > A VOS contruction in a SOV language? Hm.
> >
> > Old PIE, not PIE just before the diaspora.
>
> PIE was SOV. Are you saying 'Old PIE' was VOS? That's a highly unusual type of sequence.
> > > > In my view Italic inherited both the /r./-impersonal and theGood point!!
> > > > 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").
> >
> > Another error on my part. All the old examples of <estur> come
> > from 'eat' not 'be' and have nothing to do with double-marked
> > passives. Since the root was *h1ed-, this <estur> cannot be a true
> > impersonal.
>
> Man ist, was man isst ;-)
> > > I don't think a language would need an impersonal and a passiveOne which can take a direct object. The interpretation of the Oscan evidence is vital here.
> > > both.
> >
> > Rick and Brian have settled that, I think. Anyhow, in order to
> > justify my theory, I must first explain all the P-Italic simple
> > /r/-forms as active impersonals, not passive impersonals
> > syntactically equivalent to ordinary passives (the usual view found
> > in Buck, Poultney, etc.).
>
> What's an 'active impersonal'?
> > Then I need to show that certain other /r/-forms in other branchesI think the heteroclites are better explained by suppletive Suffixwechsel, not a phonetic law.
> > of IE can be explained in a similar way, and finally to argue that
> > taking the simple */r/ as impersonal in origin, not a 3pl. pass.
> > marker which sometimes developed an impersonal sense (thus Buck)
> > gives simpler results. That will take a week or two.
> >
> OK.
>
> > > Anyway, here's my version.
> > > 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". The
> > > latter, in PIE -tó-, gave the 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.
> >
> > I am not willing to postulate such violent phonology, both -i
> > (primary 'here and now') and -r (impersonal) from *-en, even in Old
> > PIE.
>
> 'Violent'?. Hm. I like that.
> Remember that we have to have a rule *-Vn# -> *-Vr# anyway, because of the heteroclitic neuters. The -i suffix under my proposal would not have to have the suspicious property of being both a nominal and a verbal suffix, but be exclusively nominal, in fact be only the locative ending -i, its seeming occurrence as a verbal suffix being actually as the locative ending of a (personalized) verbal noun.
> I think -i developed after C (but was mechanically transferred to the personalized ppp's in *-n,Wo, *-so, *to, as a locative marker), and -r developed after V.I guess I joined the group too late for your exposition of */n,W/, and what it is actually reflected as in extant languages.