Re: Pre-PIE Verbal Morphology

On Sun, 13 Oct 2002 21:27:00 -0000, "Magwich78" <magwich78@...> wrote:

>--- In nostratic@..., Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:
>> On Sun, 13 Oct 2002 18:13:05 -0000, "Magwich78" <magwich78@...>
>wrote:
>>
>> >I forgot something:
>> >
>> >In Late PIE, (stress-accented?) /e/ > /o/ before a nasal. Thus,
>> >bherem' > bherom', bhere'mes > bhero'mes, and bherent' > bheront'.
>>
>> That only goes for the thematic vowel (which gives /o/ before all
>voiced
>> phonemes, including nasals). Plain accented /é/ always remains
>as /é/ before
>> nasals (n-stem gen. sg. -énos, athematic 3pl. -ént, etc., etc.).
>>
>Good point. Do you know why it only changes to an /o/ when it's
>a "thematic vowel"?

Not really. The thematic vowel doesn't behave like a normal PIE *e or *o.
Besides the shift to *o before a voiced segment (in my opinion, simply a
lengthening **a > **a: (> *o), cf. English bat [bæt] vs. bad [bæ:d]), the other
main distinctive characteristic of the thematic vowel is that it is (almost)
completely unaffected by zero grade (there are arguably some cases of a weakened
"zero-grade" thematic vowel, but even then the outcome is *i, not zero).

The only explanation I can think of for the lengthening (o-grade) of the
thematic vowel before voiced segments is that the thematic vowel is the only PIE
morpheme --capable of taking endings-- which ends in a vowel. The other
ending-taking entities are roots (which have the structure (s)C(C)e(C)C-) and
suffixes (structure -(C)e(C)C-). The lengthening rule applied only before
voiced endings, and the only morpheme that had a vowel in the right place was
the thematic vowel.

>Also, what do you think of the rest of my reconstruction?

Well, you can find a partial account of my latest views on Cybalist (under the
heading Morphology (1/20..13/20, rest to follow).

>The 1st and 2nd person endings arose from enclitic pronouns (*me and
>*te, respectively). Thus, with the root *bher-:
>
>bher-me 'I bear'
>bher-te 'you bear'

I agree in principle, except I would say the cliticized forms were simply the
nominative independent forms of the personal pronouns: **mu (later replaced as
an independent pronoun by *h1ég-) and *tu. This explains the alternation *m ~
*w in the 1st person (Hitt. sg. -mi, -un, pl. -wen(i); Luw. sg. -wi, pl.
-man(i); non-Anatolian sg. thematic *-o:(w), athematic *-m(i), du. -wh2ás, pl.
*-més(i) ~ *-mos, *-mén), and the -s (< *-tW) in the 2sg.

>Later on, a distinction between definite (direct object overtly
>marked) and indefinite arose (which quickly evolved into a transitive-
>intransitive dichotomy). Pre-PIE speakers formed a definite
>conjugation by adding the deictic/pronominal element -e- to the verb
>stem. Thus:
>
>bher-e-m(e) 'I bear it'
>bher-e-t(e) 'you bear it'
>bher-e '[it] bears it'

That is what I think, yes. Except that such a transitive-intransitive dichotomy
cannot be proven on the basis of the attested IE material (Latin (them.) fero:,
(athem.) fert are part of the same paradigm and unfortunately there is nothing
directly pointing to an old intransitive/indefinite transitive vs. definite
transitive opposition).

>The 1st and 2nd plural endings were formed by adding the plural
>suffix -es:
>
>bher-m(e)-es 'we bear'
>bher-t(e)-es 'y'all bear'
>
>bher-e-m-es 'we bear it'
>bher-e-t-es 'y'all bear it'

How do you explain Anatolian/Greek -men(i) and Anatolian -ten(i) (and Tocharian
-cer)? How do you explain secondary -me, -te?

>When distinction between singular and plural numbers in verbs
>developed, the 3rd person forms were extended by the pronominal
>element -t in the singular and the participial suffix -nt in the
>plural:
>
>bher-t 'it bears'
>bher-nt 'they bear'
>
>bher-e-t 'it bears it'
>bher-e-nt 'they bear it'

As to -ént, them. -ont (secondary athematic -érs > -é:r), I believe it's plural
-én- + -t:

present: past:
-mW-i -mW-én-i -mW -mW-én
-sW-i -tW-én-i -sW -tW-ér
-0-t-i -0-én-t-i -s(W) -0-ér-s(W)

>At this point, I am unsure when and how the 2nd singular ending
>changed to -s. Perhaps when combined with the non-past tense suffix -
>i, the combination -t-i > -s-i by assibilation, and then spread
>analogically throughout the rest of the paradigm(s).

3sg. has -ti (3pl. -énti), so it wasn't assibilation.

>More on tense:
>
>At some stage in the above development, tense distinctions arose.
>Two primarily elements were used: the deictic element -e- was
>prefixed to the verb stem with a temporal meaning (*'at that time'
>> 'then'); the locative marker -i was suffixed to the singular
>definite/transitive endings to keep them distinct from the
>indefinite/intransitive ones, and had the temporal meaning of *'hic
>et nunc.'

The addition of -i happened much earlier than the prefixing of h1e- (which is
directly or indirectly attested only in Indo-Iranian, Greek, Armenian, Phrygian
and Slavic). -i was suffixed even before the soundlaw -n > -r (3pl. -énti vs.
-érs) [but *after* the soundlaw -tW > -s(W)].

>As others have pointed out (Sihler), the PIE 'perfect' paradigm is
>really a stative paradigm. I think the stative forms were always
>created by reduplication of the verb root, even in very ancient
>statives like *woid- (from **we(i)-weid-).

While loss of reduplication is indeed a viable explanation in a number of cases,
I doubt *all* cases of unreduplicated perfects can be explained away in such a
way. My own (tentative) theory is that reduplication once denoted plurality of
the absolutive (intransitive subject, transitive object). Perhaps something
like:

intr. I know *wóid-h2 we know *wó-wid-mW
you know *wóid[s]-th2 you know *wó-wid[s]-thW (< -dhW)
he knows *wóid-0 they know *wó-wid(-r)
tr.sg. I know it *wóid-h2-a we know it *weid-mW-é
you know it *wóid[s]-th2-a you know it *weid[s]-thW-é
he knows it *wóid-e they know it *wóid(-r)-e
tr.pl. I know them *wó-wid-h2-a we know them *we-wid-mW-é
you know them *wó-wid[s]-th2-a you know them *we-wid[s]-thW-é
he knows them *wó-wid-e they know them *wó-wid(-r.s)

This was later normalized in different ways.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...