Very quick question about IE mediopassive cause I am lazy

[merijn]

A very quick question because I am too lazy to look at all IE languages on wikipedia: Is there besides Modern Greek a modern Indo-European language that still has reflexes of PIE medio-passive endings? I was wondering how well we could reconstruct PIE if we only had modern languages, and it occurred to me that I didn't know of any IE language besides Greek that has preserved the medio-passive, so that would have been impossible to reconstruct.

[Sleinad Flar]

The Irish impersonal ending -t(e)ar, ultimately from *-tor or *-tro. Maybe also some imperfect endings.

[Niedokonany]

I'm curious what's the origin of the Common Slavic *-tъ ending. The other variant *-tь apparently continues *-ti, the former one looks as if it's descended from -tu or maybe -to (the final o > ъ in Slavic appears to be quite selective, though, if it's a real sound change in this position). Another possibility is that the demonstrative pronoun *tъ has somehow influenced the original ending.

[hwhatting]

The Lithuanian present tense 2Sg. ending -i / -ie (< *-ei) and the 3rd Sg.+Pl. -a (< *-o) and the corresponding endings in Latvian are normally traced back to the system of PIE Mediopassive / Perfect endings; the Slavic 2Sg. pres. tense in -si also normally is claimed to be a contamination of the active ending in PIE *-si and some mediopassive ending (either the same as in Lith. *-ie or something like *-(s)oi/-(s)ai.

I'm curious what's the origin of the Common Slavic *-tъ ending. The other variant *-tь apparently continues *-ti, the former one looks as if it's descended from -tu or maybe -to (the final o > ъ in Slavic appears to be quite selective, though, if it's a real sound change in this position). Another possibility is that the demonstrative pronoun *tъ has somehow influenced the original ending.

A succinct summary of all the proposals I've seen, except for the one that *-tъ is just the graphic expression of a depalatalisation of the ending, a process that could be explained as a reduction of markedness of the ending for the "generally least marked 3rd person" (When I studied Slavistics in the late 80s/ early 90s, that seemed to be the explanation favourised by my profs - don't know whether anyone even mentions that proposal these days). AFAIK, there's still no consensus among IEan and Slavic historical linguists on the origins of *-tъ.

[Salmoneus]

Coincidentally, I "read" something yesterday arguing that the present tenses of some gothic (and other germanic?) verbs (including 'to have') were derived from 'activised' mediopassives - mediopassive endings reanalysed as part of the verb, with normal active endings stuck on the end.

[marconatrix]

Old Irish had some verbs conjugated as 'deponents', they look a bit like passives but are more or less active (or middle??) In the modern Gaelics they've been lost, but in Irish some of the normal inflexions seem to have come from this class, their characteristic is a final -r.

Surprised to find something very similar in Latvian but here the endings are in -s. They could be a resent grammaticalisation of a fused enclitic, *as maybe? Anyone know where these fit in, if at all?

[WeepingElf]

Old Irish had some verbs conjugated as 'deponents', they look a bit like passives but are more or less active (or middle??) In the modern Gaelics they've been lost, but in Irish some of the normal inflexions seem to have come from this class, their characteristic is a final -r.

A feature shared by Classical Latin. (Actually, the term 'deponent' originates from the Latin grammar tradition.) In both languages, deponents are thought to be survivals of old mediopassives used as middles. And as in Irish, the feature was lost in Vulgar Latin, and does not show up, to my knowledge, in any Romance language.

[hwhatting]

Surprised to find something very similar in Latvian but here the endings are in -s. They could be a resent grammaticalisation of a fused enclitic, *as maybe? Anyone know where these fit in, if at all?

That's just boring old reflexive *se. In Lithuanian its also -s when suffixed, but with prefixed verbs it -si- and moves to the position between prefix and verb, showing that it originally was a clitic. Suffixing a clitic form of the reflexive pronoun into a kind of reflexive-mediopassive ending set is an areal features - Scandinavian languages (-sk) and Russian (-sya) do it as well.

[Ulrike Meinhof]

Suffixing a clitic form of the reflexive pronoun into a kind of reflexive-mediopassive ending set is an areal features - Scandinavian languages (-sk)

Is that a typo for -s, or are you referring to a morpheme I'm not aware of?

[hwhatting]

Suffixing a clitic form of the reflexive pronoun into a kind of reflexive-mediopassive ending set is an areal features - Scandinavian languages (-sk)

Is that a typo for -s, or are you referring to a morpheme I'm not aware of?

Well, it was -sk historically (attested in Old Norse and in English loans from Norse like bask, lit. "bathe oneself"), but you're right, in the Modern Scandinavian languages it has become -s (-st in Icelandic).

[Ulrike Meinhof]

Well, it was -sk historically (attested in Old Norse and in English loans from Norse like bask, lit. "bathe oneself"), but you're right, in the Modern Scandinavian languages it has become -s (-st in Icelandic).

Oh, right, okay. In some Norwegian dialects it's -st too. I don't know if it's even productive in Danish?

[hwhatting]

I don't know if it's even productive in Danish?

According to wikipedia, it seems to be.