PhDniX's blog

#5 *terp- ~ *(s)dʰerbʰ-

*terp- is glossed as 'erstarren' in LIV and *(s)dʰerbʰ- is glossed as 'fest/starr werden'.

*terp- is found in Lat. torpeō 'to be numb, paralysed. Also found in Lith. tir͂pti 'to coagulate, grow stiff'; OCS. trƅpĕti 'to suffer'; In germanic this root is also found OHG derb/p, OE þeorf, OIc. þjarfr 'unleavened' < PGm. þerba- 'stiff' < *trep-ó-.

As seen, this root is attested with o-grade, e-grade and Ø-grade.

*(s)dʰerbʰ- is found in OHG sterban 'to die', with an s-mobile that devoices the initial consonant. OE has deorfan 'to perish'.

CS strƅbi 'to make ripe', And OCS u-strabljǫ, -strabiti 'to make healthy', which is a *-ei^e/_o-causative derivation with o-grade in te root.

Also in this root o-grade, e-grade and Ø-grade is attested.

#4 *treup- ~ *dʰreubʰ-

Both *treup- and *dʰreubʰ- are glossed in LIV as 'zerbröckeln'.

The root *treup- is exclusively found in Balto-Slavic. Lith. trupù trupė́ti 'to crumble'; rus. trupljú trupít 'id.'. A nasalpresent formation is also found in Lithuanian as trumpù truptí 'to crumble'. The root always displays Ø-grade.

*dʰreubʰ- is almost only found in Gr. θρύπτω 'to crumble' besides a aor. ptc. διατρύφην. People have tried to connect OSax. drūvōn 'to be sad', which is semantically a bit of a stretch. Also this root is only found with Ø-grade.

This root is too badly attested to be used as proof for consonant gradation. But if consonant gradation can be proven in some through other roots, we might be able to connect these two as gradation pairs.

#3 *trep- ~ *strebʰ-

*trep- is glossed in LIV as 'wenden' and *strebʰ- is glossed as 'drehen, wenden'.

*trep- is a well attested root in several Indo-European languages. First there's Hitt. terepp-^zi 'to plough'; Gr. τρέπω 'to turn' Lat. trepō 'id.' Skt. trapate 'to be ashamed' with a semantic shift of 'to turn away' → 'to turn away in shame' → 'to be ashamed'.

All these attestations unambiguously point towards *trep- which was athematic in the Hittite stage, and later became thematic.

If *strebʰ- is to be paired with the root *trep-, then the *s must be an s-mobile. This root is only attested in Greek though, as στρέφω. One might wonder whether it is a PIE root; The root structure itself would seem to indicate so, finding another explanation for this root would be difficult.

It should be noted that the *t in *strebʰ- might have been a *dʰ which was devoiced by the initial *s. Both roots unambiguously display full grade in the root, only Hittite shows an e/Ø ablaut which we might expect from an athematic verb. If the Greek word στρέφω indeed has an Indo-European origin, than these two words may be gradation-pairs.

#2 *pleh₂g- ~ *bʰleh₂g-

Boot these roots are like the previous pair glossed as 'schlagen'.

The root *pleh₂g- is found in Lat. plangō 'to beat, to strike; mourn, bewail' as an old *n-infix present. Go. faiflokun 'to hit, to flog'. Gr. πλάζω 'to hit, to drive off course, aor. ἐπλήγην, passive πλάγθη 'was beaten'. Lastly it is found in OSax. as flōkan 'to curse'. The last form is also still found in Dutch as vloeken with the exact same meaning as Old Saxon.

Latin solely shows the Ø-grade of the root, while Greek shows both Ø-grade and full-grade. Germanic exclusively has the full grade.

*bʰleh₂g- is attested in Lat. flāgrum 'whip', with the instrumental suffix *-ro-. Also found in several OIc. Words: blaka, blakra 'to hit back and forth', blak 'a blow', blekkja 'to hit'. Lastly the root is found with a *-sk^e/_o- suffix in Lith. blokšti, blaškiù 'to swing back and forth'.

OIc. represents the root in the Ø-grade *bʰlh₂g-, while Latin points towards a full grade *bʰleh₂g-. Finally Lithuanian shows ablaut of both full- and Ø-grade.

If the alternation is true, then this allows us to give a more specific meaning to this root. *bʰleh₂g- quite clearly means 'to flay with a whip'. While Gothic seems to indicate the same meaning in the root *pleh₂g-.

#1 *pieh₂- ~ *bʰeiH-

The root *pieh₂- is glossed as 'schlagen' in LIV. The present is said to have a *-u- stemextension. Gr. πταίω 'to bump oneself', Lat. paviō 'to thump, to pound, to strike'. Which point to *pih₂-u-i^e/_o-.

Baltic provides evidence for this root in both lith. piáuju(piáuti) 'to cut' and latv. pļaũju (pļaũt) 'to mow, to harvest'. This points to *pih₂-u-i ^e / _o - as well.

TochB. has the one form pyakar 'strike (downwards), batter'. which due to the absence of the *-u- element is considered a retention of the aorist. This would reflect *pieh₂- with the *h₂ > *k shift. Shift proposed. The evidence of this word is the weakest. The *h₂ > *k is controversial and TochB. p could also be from PIE *b or *bʰ.

An *ei ^e / _o -causative form is found in Gr. πτοᾶν 'to strike down' which goes back to *pioh₂-ei ^e / _o -.

The root bʰeiH- is attested in olat. perfines 'to break', OIr. -benaid , -ben 'to strike'. This points to *bʰi-ne/n-H.

One also finds OCS. biti 'to beat' which seems to point to *bʰiH-i^e/_o-.

There is no conclusive evidence for the value of the laryngeal in *bʰeiH- but if these roots are indeed gradation pairs, *bʰeih₂- should be reconstructed.

One should also note that all the forms with the *bʰ are only found with Ø-grade. Technically speaking the root could be *bʰieH- and thus show no schwebeablaut that it seems to have at first sight

Scripture serial

My subject has been OK'ed, and thus I will be writing about consonant gradation in Indo-European verbal roots. My work on these roots will be serialised into blog form the coming weeks. I'll discuss several roots, their attestations, meaning etc. the coming days.

This way you can have an idea of what I'm writing, and I'll have a sort of 'backup storage'.

Quick update on Scripture

I've finally inserted all verb roots mentioned in LIV and s the results are much better than expected! I found 19 very sound verbal root pairs that differ at least in lenition of consonant, and sometimes also in vowel position as if it the process of schwebeablaut. Then there's also still a whole bunch of pairs which are semantically a bit harder to link.

The result thus is that in all probability I will be writing about the consonant lenition in verbal roots in Proto-Indo-European and trying to give a Pre-Indo-European solution for it.

I hope to keep you guys updated on my findings. My findings so far though, seem to match perfectly with Kortlandt's theories of Indo-Uralic. This might sound like a good thing, but if Kortlandt's theory turns out to work, and I can find no solution the penultimate-stress syncope way, it will mean I'll have to discard that theory.

There's still plenty fo room to attack Kortlandt's theory as well though. There's some roots that should  be pairs but are impossible to link semantically. If Kortlandt is right and all voiced aspirates come from voiceless consonants this should be impossible.

Plenty of stuff to think about and I still have a lot to research, but that's good. Whatever the result it will surely be enough top get my Bachelor degree, and that feels good. :D

Kortlandt's Consonant Gradation Part II

A while ago I wrote a post on Kortlandt's article on consonant gradation, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who didn't full understand it. As a result I sent the good man an e-mail that has cleared things up somewhat. Though I still have some questions, which I'll ask him soon if none of you can clear it up.

Following is a translation of my e-mail and his reply, leaving out such formalities usually written in a letter since they seem a bit pointless on a blog:

Me:

To me it seems that the consonant gradation you propose is fairly obvious, but I do have some questions about the specifics, since I can't get the forms that you give exactly. For the sake of example lets use *keim-. It stands to reason that the pre-syncope form then was *kéiem  for the nominative.

Rule I would lenite the *m which  doesn't happen in Indo-European
Rule II would lenite the *i which doesn't happen either
Rule III would shift the accent to the second syllable and lenite the first resulting in *g'eiém, then syncope would yield *g'iém which is not the nominative.

So I considered taking a protoform *kéim, this regularily yields *kéim, but then if we would try to make the genitive/ablative:
*kéimes
Rule I to III wouldn't apply which would yield *kéims, not the form we are looking for either.

Could you please explain where I went wrong with my reasoning.

Kortlandt:
You are right that the rules do not work, my formulation of rule III is incomplete. Before rule III applies at least apocope takes place.

Nom: *keiem > *keim
Acc: *keiem(e) me > *g'iem m(e) For particle *me see: Hittite ammuk 'me' Comparable are Greek 1pl amme and 2pl umme.
Gen: *keyemeti > *g'imes For genitive ending *-ti see: The Indo-Uralic Verb

Besides that, I suggest you read Sammallahti's book that I mention in my article, which might help you get a better view of the situation.

So there it is. I must admit, I haven't yet gotten round to reading Sammallahti's book. I'm also somewhat puzzled by the *(e) element Kortlandt conjures up in the Accusative, and the *e he show in the Genitive. My guess is these are epenthetic vowels, where the Accusative one might not be absolutely necessary.

But it's not 100% clear to me. Any suggestions? Otherwise I'll bother him with my uninformed ignorance again ;-)