-t versus no consomant in 3p sg verb forms in common IE

[Tom Wier]

Anthony Appleyard wrote:

>   But re Greek present {luei}: did this form come from *{lueit}?; or
> perhaps it never ended in a {-t} in the first place. IE *{lueti} would >
> Attic Greek **{luesi}.
>   Perhaps in early IE times the final -t was only present when the verb
> had no noun subject, and ultimately derives from an adhering postposited
> pre-IE subject pronoun.

Well, consider another fact:  intervocalic /s/  in Greek was lost sometime
after the fricativization that you mentioned above:  *lueti > *luesi, which
with the loss of /s/, would produce /luei/, which is the attested form.

[ Moderator's comment:
  The Attic development of Pre-Greek *t > s takes place after the loss of
  intervocalic *s, or we'd never have had any evidence for it.  It is therefore
  irrelevant to Mr. Appleyard's question.
  --rma ]

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Tom Wier <artabanos at mail.utexas.edu>
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