The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Wait... what? In the standard reconstruction, the /i/ in the reduplication syllable in the reduplicating presents (*CiCeC) has nothing to do with the laryngeal. Some argue that it's the same as the nearness indicator /i/ that also shows up in the presnt tende endings (-mi, -si, -ti). As you rightly say, the type is attested in branches where the laryngeals don't become /i/, so the /i/ can't go back to the laryngeal. Whether the Vedic presents with a reduplication vowel other than /i/ (dada:ti, dadha:ti) are an innovation or an archaism is a different question (I assume the latter).
Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Oops again, so is dádhāti apparently. I just blindly grabbed from the wrong section - she doesn't actually cover Greek reduplicated perfects except in passing.dhok wrote:Wait...τίθημι is a present, not a perfect; its perfect is τέθηκα.
The author also doesn't offer a very satisfactory answer for this, other than the fact that /i/ is the most common vowel in fixed-vowel reduplication cross-linguistically.dhok wrote:And none of this explains very well why Greek would have fixed ι-reduplication in presents, since it doesn't have /i/ as the reflex of interconsonantal laryngeals. I can't think of a single root *Cer(C)- that has a reduplicated present in Greek, but there probably is one...
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Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
What do people here think of the idea that the reflexive *swe (clitic *se-) and *so, the suppletive nom.sg of *to- "that", could go back to the original third person pronoun?
Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
I know that demonstratives quite frequently become thirdpersonal pronouns, but is the opposite even attasted? I can't imagine he/she/it shifting semantically to that.KathTheDragon wrote:What do people here think of the idea that the reflexive *swe (clitic *se-) and *so, the suppletive nom.sg of *to- "that", could go back to the original third person pronoun?
To me *so looks like the result of lexical contamination with another pronoun, maybe ultimatelly cognate to *to- via assybilation in some earlier stage of the language.
Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Indeed many languages (IE ones) use demonstratives as pronouns: "that dog barks" >> "that (one) barks". Depending on the history of demonstratives and pronouns in a particular language, one might expect to see extension in either directions. So I see little reason why there should be an uncrossable barrier between demonstrative and pronoun. While pronouns are a special, closed class in some languages, others freely migrate the usage. It is easy to imagine a language with no pronouns, but one without demonstratives would be odd.
(Avatar is an electric motor consisting of a bit of wire, a couple of paper clips,
two neodymium magnets, and a pair of AA batteries. A very cute demo of
minimal technology, and likewise completely useless for any practical purpose.)
two neodymium magnets, and a pair of AA batteries. A very cute demo of
minimal technology, and likewise completely useless for any practical purpose.)
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Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Yes, in English, where "them" had become the dominant form of the demonstrative adjective almost everywhere by around 1900 - although it's since retreated in prestige dialects in Britain, and I gather also in the US.Zju wrote:I know that demonstratives quite frequently become thirdpersonal pronouns, but is the opposite even attasted?KathTheDragon wrote:What do people here think of the idea that the reflexive *swe (clitic *se-) and *so, the suppletive nom.sg of *to- "that", could go back to the original third person pronoun?
Blog: [url]http://vacuouswastrel.wordpress.com/[/url]
But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh
I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!
But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh
I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!
Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Them as a demonstrative strongly marks social class at least here, as does forms like ain't; in the varieties I am familiar with here them is not used as a demonstrative, but I have encountered more working or lower-class people who use them as a demonstrative.
Dibotahamdn duthma jallni agaynni ra hgitn lakrhmi.
Amuhawr jalla vowa vta hlakrhi hdm duthmi xaja.
Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro.
Amuhawr jalla vowa vta hlakrhi hdm duthmi xaja.
Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro.
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Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
As I understand it, it's similar in Britain to what Travis describes.
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Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
What I've gathered is that it's become much rarer in the US, more geographically limited, and is continuing to decline. In the UK, on the other hand, it's considered more or less universal in "urban" English in England (though not in Scotland). [a survey from a couple of decades ago identified it as the most widespread feature of urban English among children (found in 97.5% of the schools surveyed)*]KathTheDragon wrote:As I understand it, it's similar in Britain to what Travis describes.
*the other general urban features found in more than 80% of schools were:
- should of (91%)
- absence of plural marking on counters after numeral (two pound of flour)
- what as the subject relative pronoun (the cat what bit me)
- never as a general negator in the past tense (eg "I never did!" instead of "I didn't!")
- there was and (a little less widespread) there is occuring with plurals (there was frogs everywhere)
- sat and stood, rather than their active participles, occuring with copulas (he was stood by the door)
- quick used as an adverb (and presumably other adjectives too)
- ain't or in't
- give me it (also common in higher registers of course, but less common in older regional dialects)
- was generalised to all persons
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But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh
I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!
But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh
I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!
Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
The English I am used to here must be much, much closer syntactically and morphologically to formal Standard English than the urban English you see there; of all those, the only ones that appear to be common here is "should of"... except that that is just an informal spelling of should have, as grammar words very frequently lose initial /h/ here, especially when unstressed... and there was and there is with plurals and give me it - and all of these things are universal in everyday spoken NAE (give it me is actually ungrammatical here). (The only really markedly non-standard things morphologically or syntactically I can think of about the speech here are past participles like boughten, aten, dranken, etc., and things that are still non-standard but not markedly so, such preserving a distinction between present participles and gerunds in informal speech, or which are non-standard, strictly speaking, but are practically universal in everyday speech like kinda and sorta as adverbs.)
Dibotahamdn duthma jallni agaynni ra hgitn lakrhmi.
Amuhawr jalla vowa vta hlakrhi hdm duthmi xaja.
Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro.
Amuhawr jalla vowa vta hlakrhi hdm duthmi xaja.
Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro.
Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
"them" as a demonstrative is regarded as a sign of an uneducated country bumpkin in my experience. Often used by the educated as a humor device. In concurrence with Travis B., "should of" is the only commonly heard usage. Though "give me" usually is pronounced "gimme". IIRC, Travis's dialect is Great-Lakesy. Mine is Texas->Colorado->California (I won't bore you with the mergers, except to say my dad was astounded when he learned that I have no "L" in talk, chalk, walk, but do in balk and caulk).
(Avatar is an electric motor consisting of a bit of wire, a couple of paper clips,
two neodymium magnets, and a pair of AA batteries. A very cute demo of
minimal technology, and likewise completely useless for any practical purpose.)
two neodymium magnets, and a pair of AA batteries. A very cute demo of
minimal technology, and likewise completely useless for any practical purpose.)
Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
"Uneducated country bumpkin" sounds like way too much of a value judgement for me to be comfortable with it. You could say similar things about my tendency to use a hard [t] for initial /ð/, and sometimes initial /θ/, not preceded by a vowel, nasal, or sibilant when I am not intentionally speaking carefully or formally.
Dibotahamdn duthma jallni agaynni ra hgitn lakrhmi.
Amuhawr jalla vowa vta hlakrhi hdm duthmi xaja.
Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro.
Amuhawr jalla vowa vta hlakrhi hdm duthmi xaja.
Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro.
Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
It is a value judgment. In my experience it is the uneducated who regularly use "them" as a demonstrative, other than, as I said, by some in humor. "T'ing", "dat", etc are accent variations, not wholesale grammatical solecisms, like "them". I don't care a fig about "any usage used is ok". That's not how communication works.
(Avatar is an electric motor consisting of a bit of wire, a couple of paper clips,
two neodymium magnets, and a pair of AA batteries. A very cute demo of
minimal technology, and likewise completely useless for any practical purpose.)
two neodymium magnets, and a pair of AA batteries. A very cute demo of
minimal technology, and likewise completely useless for any practical purpose.)
Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
You're a prescriptivist, and you think that prescribed standards are the "correct" language, as implied by your usage of the word "solecism", and that people that don't use them are necessarily uneducated - and when you say "uneducated" you mean so pejoratively.
Dibotahamdn duthma jallni agaynni ra hgitn lakrhmi.
Amuhawr jalla vowa vta hlakrhi hdm duthmi xaja.
Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro.
Amuhawr jalla vowa vta hlakrhi hdm duthmi xaja.
Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro.
Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Though this is an interesting discussion, I don't think it belongs in the GIE thread. Perhaps a moderator can split it of?
JAL
JAL
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Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Then your experience here is sorely limited. I have certainly heard it from educated speakers of regional British dialects, for example.garysk wrote:In my experience it is the uneducated who regularly use "them" as a demonstrative
Bringing this back on topic, I think we've established that it's feasible for a 3sg.nom *so to become a suppletive nom.sg of "that", giving us the familiar *so/*to- demonstrative. What about the remainder of the paradigm turning reflexive? I imagine Kuryłowicz's fourth law of analogy could be invoked here, where some other demonstrative shifting to 3sg usage causes the old 3sg to adopt a secondary function, but this requires *swe- to already have the reflexive as a function.
Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
I don't know.KathTheDragon wrote:Bringing this back on topic, I think we've established that it's feasible for a 3sg.nom *so to become a suppletive nom.sg of "that", giving us the familiar *so/*to- demonstrative. What about the remainder of the paradigm turning reflexive? I imagine Kuryłowicz's fourth law of analogy could be invoked here, where some other demonstrative shifting to 3sg usage causes the old 3sg to adopt a secondary function, but this requires *swe- to already have the reflexive as a function.
I could imagine it being a regular personal/demonstrative pronoun, then the 3rd person being supplanted by other pronouns in the subject position, leaving *swe- to objects. Then *swe- specializing to mean specifically the same person as the verb's subject (feasible if the “new” 3rd person pronouns developed from demonstratives). Then the new reflexive meaning becoming the only one, and then the 3rd person reflexive spreading to other persons by analogy. (The extreme case being Polish „się” developing into some kind of a generic medio-passive and/or impersonal quasi-particle.)
The conlanger formerly known as “the conlanger formerly known as Pole, the”.
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If we don't study the mistakes of the future we're doomed to repeat them for the first time.
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Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
My pet theory is that the PIE reflexives are based on the personal pronouns with a *-w- suffix. I seem to remember reading somewhere that such a reflexive suffix exists in Uralic, but I don't know where.
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Tha cvastam émi cvastam santham amal phelsa. -- Friedrich Schiller
ESTAR-3SG:P human-OBJ only human-OBJ true-OBJ REL-LOC play-3SG:A
Tha cvastam émi cvastam santham amal phelsa. -- Friedrich Schiller
ESTAR-3SG:P human-OBJ only human-OBJ true-OBJ REL-LOC play-3SG:A
Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Twenty in PIE shows loss of initial *d in the 'two' portion: many branches reflect *wi- or *Hwi-. What's the explanation for this? Is it just plain old cluster reduction or is there some other motivation for this? Do other words show *dw- > *w-?
Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
What about *dḱm̥tóm → *ḱm̥tóm?
The conlanger formerly known as “the conlanger formerly known as Pole, the”.
If we don't study the mistakes of the future we're doomed to repeat them for the first time.
If we don't study the mistakes of the future we're doomed to repeat them for the first time.
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Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Short answer: controversial
Longer answer: Some people ascribe it to the "Kortlandt effect", whereby *d and *h₁ seem to alternate throughout the protolanguage - in particular, Kloekhorst states very specifically that in this case it's a dissimilation *d > *h₁ from a later dental. Others claim that the *d was simply lost without going through *h₁, and still others that there never was a *d in the first place. The case for reconstructing *d in each of these two words is wholly inferential - for 20 it depends on decomposing the word as *(d)wi-(d)ḱm̩tih₁ "two tens", which is plausible but not universally accepted (due to the aformentioned disagreement), and for 100 it depends on the derivation from *déḱm̩t "10", again plausible but not universally accepted.
Longer answer: Some people ascribe it to the "Kortlandt effect", whereby *d and *h₁ seem to alternate throughout the protolanguage - in particular, Kloekhorst states very specifically that in this case it's a dissimilation *d > *h₁ from a later dental. Others claim that the *d was simply lost without going through *h₁, and still others that there never was a *d in the first place. The case for reconstructing *d in each of these two words is wholly inferential - for 20 it depends on decomposing the word as *(d)wi-(d)ḱm̩tih₁ "two tens", which is plausible but not universally accepted (due to the aformentioned disagreement), and for 100 it depends on the derivation from *déḱm̩t "10", again plausible but not universally accepted.
Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Your theory is more than likely correct, based on an analysis of the pronominal systems:WeepingElf wrote:My pet theory is that the PIE reflexives are based on the personal pronouns with a *-w- suffix. I seem to remember reading somewhere that such a reflexive suffix exists in Uralic, but I don't know where.
- 1st person sing/dual/pl accusative: (h₁/m)mé, n̥h₁wé, n̥smé
- 2nd person sing/dual/pl accusative: tué (<tu-wé?), uh₁wé, usmé
I'd wager that the pronominal suffix was -b- in Pre-PIE, but destabilized into m after labials and w after coronals and velars and possibly velars (-h₁b- > -h₁w-, but -sb- > -sm- in the dual and plural numbers) How this corroborates with Proto-Uralic pronominal reconstructions, as well as any other evidence of related -m-/-w- pairing, is not something I can defend at the moment, but it's my pet theory nevertheless.
It's nevertheless entirely possible that the oblique forms in *s- root, along with the pronominal suffix, was analyzed as the reflexive pronoun (why with -w-? I can't rightly say, unless there's a lost laryngeal in that position.)
Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
It sems strange that this is from the 3rd person pronoun rather than a survival of the OE demonstrative dative plural þǣm, contrasting with Modern English 3rd person pronoun 'em.Salmoneus wrote:Yes, in English, where "them" had become the dominant form of the demonstrative adjective almost everywhere by around 1900 - although it's since retreated in prestige dialects in Britain, and I gather also in the US.
Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
There certainly is such a suffix, but it derives reflexive verbs (e.g. nearly all u-stem verbs in Finnish). No Uralic languages have special reflexive pronouns, mostly they employ possessed forms of a word meaning 'self' (not too much unlike English, I suppose).WeepingElf wrote:My pet theory is that the PIE reflexives are based on the personal pronouns with a *-w- suffix. I seem to remember reading somewhere that such a reflexive suffix exists in Uralic, but I don't know where.
[ˌʔaɪsəˈpʰɻ̊ʷoʊpɪɫ ˈʔæɫkəɦɔɫ]
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Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
I see. That does not completely rule out a connection, but it seems tenuous and doubtful.Tropylium wrote:There certainly is such a suffix, but it derives reflexive verbs (e.g. nearly all u-stem verbs in Finnish). No Uralic languages have special reflexive pronouns, mostly they employ possessed forms of a word meaning 'self' (not too much unlike English, I suppose).WeepingElf wrote:My pet theory is that the PIE reflexives are based on the personal pronouns with a *-w- suffix. I seem to remember reading somewhere that such a reflexive suffix exists in Uralic, but I don't know where.
...brought to you by the Weeping Elf
Tha cvastam émi cvastam santham amal phelsa. -- Friedrich Schiller
ESTAR-3SG:P human-OBJ only human-OBJ true-OBJ REL-LOC play-3SG:A
Tha cvastam émi cvastam santham amal phelsa. -- Friedrich Schiller
ESTAR-3SG:P human-OBJ only human-OBJ true-OBJ REL-LOC play-3SG:A