PIE ablaut & Renfrew's Celtic Scenario

[Carol F. Justus]

Following up a longer discussion, but with special reference to PIE vowel
alternation, the perfect,and Germanic:

>Stanley said:

>>the non-present forms in Latin and Germanic (at least) are
>> obviously heterogeneous in origin, on purely internal grounds.

>I'm not so sure. ( - Peter)

>Proto-Germanic had a new formation for weak verbs, and in strong verbs the
>pattern:
>     present                 e grade
>     preterite singular  o grade
>     preterite plural      zero grade
>     (and past participle zero grade, though that's not relevant here)

>Later phonetic changes and analogical levelling have obscured the system
>somewhat, and I admit there are problems, especially with class 6 verbs, but
>I don't see that this is "obviously heterogeneous".   The system is based on
>the IE pattern reflected in Greek and I-I perfect.  Even the
>preterite-presents could all go back to the perfect, I think.

The Germanic forms that clearly go back to an IE 'perfect' are the
preterite-presents like Gothic wait, witum corresponding to Greek oi~da,
i'dmen. The original vowel alternation within a single verb paradigm would
seem to be that between the singular and plural as in Gothic wait, witum.
In Hittite this vowel alternation is exemplified by verbs like kuenzi,
kunnanzi 'strike' or eszi, asanzi 'be' (full grade, zero grade) where the
third person plural is zero grade as opposed to other full grade persons.
Hittite does not have the e:o alternation, and Germanic too probably did
not originally.

People like Neu, Meid, and Polomé see the Germanic preterite-presents, like
the Hittite situation, as older (adducing lexical and other arguments).
Bridget Drinka's study of the sigmatic aorist in IE (JIES monograph 13) and
subsequent studies adduces a lot of evidence that the -s- aorist is
secondary (internally in Greek it is, for example, beside older root
aorists), and that the Latin verbal system without productive e:o aspectual
distinctions shows an archaism independent of what would then be a
Greek-Armenian-I-I common innovation.

The Germanic strong verb preterites are particularly important here.
Although their singular-plural ablaut pattern may well be old, to the
extent that it is similar to the clearly old preterite-present pattern, the
present e-grade forms may be just as innovating as Greek eidomai, eido:
'see', back formed from old oida 'know' (internal Greek evidence argues
that this form for Greek 'see' is new).

Carol Justus