Personal Pronouns / Ergativity

[Patrick C. Ryan]

[ moderator re-formatted ]

Dear Jens and Carol and IEists:

 ----- Original Message -----
From: Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen <jer at cphling.dk>
Sent: Friday, June 18, 1999 11:07 AM

<snip>

>> On Hittite kuen-, I translate it 'strike', not 'kill'. In Hittite royal
>> annals, a king often 'strikes' the enemy with the result that sometimes
>> the enemy dies, sometimes he just runs away. The action type of kuen- is not
>> clearly transitive in any telic sense. Hittite kuen- is also a -mi verb for
>> which the passive is the suppletive -hi verb ak(k)-/ek(k)- 'die', which is
>> attested with medio-passive endings. One might have expected kuen-, if it
>> behaved like English 'kill' to have active -mi and medio-passive forms.

> [...]

> Not if it was replaced by ak(k)- 'die' in that meaning (thus Puhvel in the
> introduction to the entry ak[k]-), which incidentally only makes sense it
> kuen- is 'kill', at least some of the time.

While some list-members may reject this proposal out of hand, a very few may
be interested to know that Egyptian Xn (bar-h, n), which corresponds to IE
*2. g{w}wen- by the tables of correspondence which I have developed, means
(with -j), 'to row' (beat the water(?)); Xnn.w written with the same
biliteral means 'brawlers'. Therefore, I believe there is some slight
evidence to regard Hittite kuen- as primarily 'to strike', but with the
nuance of 'create a bruise/swelling/ripple' in view of Egyptian Xnn,
'inflamed, irritated'; Xn, 'be blistered'; and IE *1. g{w}hen-, 'swell'.

As far the stative in -*H, I have reconstructed a stative in *-?A for
Nostratic.

<snip>

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN (501) 227-9947; FAX/DATA (501)312-9947 9115 W. 34th St.
Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803 and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit
ek, at ek hekk, vindga meipi, nftr allar nmu, geiri undapr . . . a ~eim
meipi er mangi veit hvers hann af rstum renn." (Havamal 138)