Histling-l Digest, Vol 36, Issue 5: Paper on Grammaticalzation of Antipassives

[Rémy Viredaz]

Dear Wolfgang,
Just a few details about PIE:

p. 53 ff., 65 ff. : The thematic 1 sg. ending -o (long) is probably akin
with the perfect ending, i.e. from *-o-h2 (or in my view from *-o-h2e), not
from *-oh1. (The box for the 2 sg. is better left totally blank. I do
understand Beekes' line of reasoning, but there are good alternative
explanations for the Lithuanian, Greek and Irish endings.)
Generally I trust Meier-Brügger, Idg. Sprachwissenschaft more than
Szemerényi or Beekes (though nobody is perfect).

p. 61 fn. 23: A good reference about the -sm- element in pronominal endings
is:
Jost Gippert, "Ein Problem der idg. Pronominalflexion". In: Adam Hyllested,
Anders Richardt Jørgensen, Jenny Helena Larsson, Thomas Olander (Hrsg. /
ed.), Per aspera ad asteriscos. Studia Indogermanica in honorem Jens
Elmegård Rasmussen , 155-165; Innsbruck: Innsbrucker Beiträge zur
Sprachwissenschaft 2004.

p. 63 n. 25: 

(A) (about the second sentence [not the first, which is unaffected]) In my
view, the animate nominative (< ergative) and the genitive (< ablative) have
been two different cases from the beginning: two separate cases
differenciated by vocalism would have been added the same particle -s. In
some nouns, however, the vocalism was indeed the same.

(B) (about the third sentence) The 'tooth' word (*h1d-ont-, participle of
*h1ed- 'bite (durative)', later mostly 'eat') is not a terribly good example
for illustrating the pre-PIE situation, because most probably it was only
formed *after* the separation between Anatolian and the rest of
Indo-European, as we can tell from the *active* function of the participial
suffix *-ont- (while -ant- is passive in Hittite on transitive verbs, and
only used with intransitive verbs in Luwian, if I remember correctly; only
the Luwian usage can be the common ancestor of the other two; it can still
be seen in non-Anatolian *g´érh2-ont-/g´rh2-nt- 'old'). Another indication
of *h1d-ont-/*h1d-nt- not being old is the leveling of the vowel alternation
of the root, as opposed to the archaic alternance in
*g´erh2-ont-/g´rh2-nt-. (Presumably the leveling occurred in the formation
of participles first, and only later was the participle *h1d-ont-
substantivized.) Perhaps a less risky word could be *pod- 'foot', unmarked
*pod (surviving as vocative), nominative *pods or (with analogical
nominative lengthening) *pôds.

(C) (same example) No compensatory lengthening has to be assumed in *hdonts
> nachgrundsprachlich Greek *odons, other languages *dons, e. g. Sanskrit
dan, Germanic *tanz. If there was a lengthening (as in the 'foot' word), it
must be analogical from the stems ending in n, l, r, if one admits that e.g.
*-ers (with short *e as in acc. *-erm) > *-er (with long e).

If you (or your potential publishers) think your paper is too long, you
could try to divide it in two parts: one typological part = pages 1-49
(well, I know it's almost as long as before), which would have a lasting
value, and one part about PIE, which would be highly tentative as the
reconstruction of the PIE thematic ending set is fraught with uncertainties
(as are some nominal endings, too). If I understand your intent properly,
the typological study may throw light on the formation of the PIE
inflection, though not the other way round, of course.

If the paper is still too long, the Sumerian part might be "separated" as
well. 

That would make either three "episodes" published in successive years of one
review, or three separate papers for different reviews - in the latter case,
each paper could also comprise a short summary of the two others.

If you manage to publish it all in one go, so much the better.

Best wishes,

Rémy Viredaz, Geneva


 


Le 28.03.10 20:27, « histling-l-request at mailman.rice.edu »
<histling-l-request at mailman.rice.edu> a écrit :

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>    1. antipassives (Wolfgang Schulze)
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> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Sun, 28 Mar 2010 20:26:57 +0200
> From: Wolfgang Schulze <W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de>
> Subject: [Histling-l] antipassives
> To: histling-l at mailman.rice.edu
> Message-ID: <4BAF9F71.7030309 at lrz.uni-muenchen.de>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-15"; Format="flowed"
> 
> Dear friends and colleagues
> please allow me exploiting your expertise by making a perhaps somewhat
> unusual post. But maybe you can help me or give me some advise. I have
> produced an admittedly lengthy paper on the *grammaticalization of
> antipassives* in terms of split aspects systems, dealing mainly with
> Sumerian, Kartvelian, and Proto-Indo-European, but including data from
> other languages, too. You can download the first draft (attention: not
> yet proof-read by an native speaker of English!) from
> http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/~wschulze/antipass.pdf . My problem is that I
> really don't know what to do with this paper. It is too long for
> submission to a journal (79 pages), and too short for producing a
> (slender) monography. Any suggestions (if ever you can imagine that the
> contents are of relevance for our community)? In addition, I would be
> happy to receive critics and other comments all of which would
> undoubtedly help to improve the quality of the analyses.
> Many thanks in advance and best wishes,
> Wolfgang


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