nasal pres / root aor

[Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen]

On Wed, 1 Sep 1999, Vidhyanath Rao wrote:

> Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen <jer at cphling.dk> wrote:

>> [...]Again, Strunk has pointed
>>  out a possible relic pair in Hittite as well: hunik-zi/hunink-anzi 'wound'
>>  vs. huek-zi 'stab, kill' which look like n-prs. + root aor. of the same
>>  verb (note the 'unfinished business' implied by the old present stem as
>>  opposed to the terminal aorist).

> This is fine if huekzi meant only `kill'. But how does `unfinished'
> stabbing lead to `wound'?

Dear Nath and List,

I may have been clumsy in reporting Strunk. In his article in the
collective volume Hethitisch und Indogermanisch (Innsbruck 1979), Strunk
glosses Hitt. hunek-zi by "sticht, verletzt", and huek-zi by "sticht ab,
schlachtet". This qualifies well as an instance of present-stem "de
conatu" vs. aorist of the accomplished fact. The stabbing only takes
aorist form when it leads to real killing.

As always, there is a spoilsport somewhere: In Puhvel's Hitt.Etym.Dict.
vol. 3 (1991), the two roots are separated. From the contexts, hune/i(n)k-
can only be seen to mean 'harm' (Strunk noted that already), and since
such a vague semantic specification allows for connection with other IE
roots than that of huek-, it _may_ be wrong. But it certainly may also be
right. And "harm" vs. "butcher, slaughter" also sounds quite good for
uncompleted vs. completed action.

Jens