Proto-Eastern Infinitives

[NP]

One thing about proto-Eastern has been bugging me for a while: the three different infinitives.

Any thoughts on why the language ended up with three different classes of infinites? It seems unlikely that a set of endings as diverse as -k, -m, and -r (which have no phonetic features at all in common, other than that they're all consonants) could have evolved from a single pre-proto-Eastern ending...which seems to leave only the possibility that they really are three distinct endings, and the only reason I can think of why they would all be present is if they once had distinct meanings.

Sigh. If it weren't so late at night, and if I were feeling a lot more ambitious, it might be interesting to search the proto-Eastern lexicon for signs of what those distinct meanings might be...

[hwhatting]

One thing about proto-Eastern has been bugging me for a while: the three different infinitives.

Any thoughts on why the language ended up with three different classes of infinites? It seems unlikely that a set of endings as diverse as -k, -m, and -r (which have no phonetic features at all in common, other than that they're all consonants) could have evolved from a single pre-proto-Eastern ending...which seems to leave only the possibility that they really are three distinct endings, and the only reason I can think of why they would all be present is if they once had distinct meanings.

I can't answer this for Mark, of course, but perhaps the situation in Pre-Proto-Eastern was similar to that in PIE - there simply were no infinitives, but only many different formations used for verbal nouns (with probably some differences in meanings for the various formations). While in the IE languages, normally one verbal noun formation was picked to form the infinitive (or infinitives - e.g., Old Greek had different inifitives for active, medium, and passive), Proto-Easterm in that case would have picked different formations for different verbs.
Best regards,
Hans-Werner

[Neek]

To add, the original endings for the infinitives may have been applied to verbs of a certain meaning, but later through analogy based on phonetic enviroments, the classes were contaminated. Giving a wider variety in the infinitive classes.

[zompist]

Reviewing the verbs section, it strikes me that the reconstructed infinitive endings aren't very well supported. In fact, they look suspiciously similar to the Cadhinor endings (-c, -n, -r). The only real evidence for the -r is Cadhinor, in fact, and the only evidence for the -m is Axunashin.

It'd be interesting to see if any semantic connection can be found for each conjugation. The Cadhinorians certainly thought they'd found one for the genders.

[Drydic]

Well, last night I was just tired enough to go through and count transivity for Proto-Eastern verbs. This is what I came up with:

-m:with 2 exceptions (la:dam go and nem be born), all are transitive.
-k: with 1 exception (alirek live), all are transitive.
-r: with ?4 exceptions (demorir exist(?), kisir slip(?), laksir rise, and nurer give suck[only if it cannot take the object 'breast(s)']), all are transitive.

I also found that maks master and maksei mistress are suspiciously close in form: Given that the feminine Genitive is always -e:, could the -ei be an old Genitive? (the Axunashin forms mex and mexi could be related, though I could not find in the sound change tables what *ei changes into in Axunashin. The aforementioned mex and mexi would point to *ei > i, but there is *leyfs wolf > reis, *meiu water > mii, and *reyir run, flow > reii. Mark, I've managed to confuse myself. HELP!!!!

[Neek]

Weight, drydic...are you saying all verbs are transitive? or did you make a typo? Is -k or -r the intransitive class? If it's -r, then how do relate -k and -m?

I think the Axunashin ei i is final or post-vocalic as long as the vowel is not i. And if you notice, before a consonant it stays as ei, or assimilates a yod. There are various variables here...

[zompist]

There aren't many instance of *ei to really decide, and those that exist are a bit tricky anyway. *Maksei is unusual in that the root ends in a vowel; Axunashin has treated it as if it were simply *maksi.

In *meiu, the final -iu is theme vowel + ending, which as a whole becomes -i in Axunashin-- e.g. *doliu duli. The root *me- has really gone on its own; *e i is a normal development, though usually it doesn't happen in the first syllable of a word.

*ey normally *ei; another example is *teyla 'rib' teile. In *kseya 'neck' xie both short vowels are raised-- again this is unusual though not that uncommon for the first syllable.

*maksei certainly derives from *maks, though without other examples of the derivation I'd be wary of saying exactly how.

[Drydic]

Weight, drydic...are you saying all verbs are transitive? or did you make a typo? Is -k or -r the intransitive class? If it's -r, then how do relate -k and -m?

All I meant was that it seems that Mark has put in a very large number of transitives, and few intransitives. I marked the -r class with as ?4 because I wasn't sure if those verbs are intransitive. I'm still not sure.

[Neek]

oh, ok. I wasn't sure what was meant by ?4 (I thought the 4 was a typo). So you're telling me that nearly all Proto-Eastern verbs are transitive?

[NP]

It'd be interesting to see if any semantic connection can be found for each conjugation. The Cadhinorians certainly thought they'd found one for the genders.

Last night I started the project I mentioned in my earlier post--I gathered all the verbs out of the proto-Eastern vocabulary and sorted them by infinitive ending.

If there are any common semantic threads binding each category together, I can't see them yet. The only really striking feature is how few -k verbs there are.

Can anybody else see anything special about these lists?

• -k: live, fear, blow, shine (moon), burn, acquire, love, have, press, roll, control
• -m: stab, fight, distribute, give, be (esam), travel, speak, be (fuam), play, eat, breathe, come, argue, go, think, see, fly, be born, sing, take, walk, count, look, dream, pour, bring, touch, look for, hunt, bear, dig, remove
• -r: move, throw, exist, leave, do, stink, hide, order, revere, slip, beat, gather, grow, rise, consider, rain, give suck, hear, drink, run/flow, jump, seize, shine (sun), penetrate, tend

[Drydic]

oh, ok. I wasn't sure what was meant by ?4 (I thought the 4 was a typo). So you're telling me that nearly all Proto-Eastern verbs are transitive?

Of those that have been reconstructed so far, yes.

[Neek]

So, Drydic, could this mean that Eastern languages have a tenacity to retain transitive verbs, and drop intransitive? It would be interesting to see a list of native verbs, from PE Cadhinorian Verdurian, and compare the transitivity of them...