Athematic

Mar 05 2008 I decided to add footnote #1 because my use of "athematic" is ambiguous here. ❋ Unknown (2008)

Thus by comparison with the traditional "thematic subjunctive" *-o-oh₂, Jasanoff's new interpretation of *-o-h₂ is relatively "athematic" although ironically the *-o- here is still the distinctive thematic vowel of the subjunctive seen in the "athematic verbs" of the traditional theory. ❋ Unknown (2008)

First of all, the 1ps subjunctive is typically understood to simply be *(-o)-oh₂ (although Jasanoff convincingly argues for a purely "athematic"1 *-oh₂ in the earliest stage of PIE, contrasting with present indicative *-mi) and the 1ps optative is normally *-yeh₁m. ❋ Unknown (2008)

1 By "athematic", I mean this in terms of traditionally theorized PIE grammar. ❋ Unknown (2008)

One of the things I came face to face with the other day was the matter of "the look" of athematic versus thematic verb stems in the earliest stage of Common Proto-Indo-European. ❋ Unknown (2009)

Are the verbs which eventually become 'athematic stems' in non-Anatolian dialects also originally Narten stems? ❋ Unknown (2009)

These speeches, much as I admire them at one level "" and I really do "" are also narrowly focused and essentially athematic. ❋ Unknown (2009)

It's been suggested that, in Sanskrit, *h₁éǵom was reanalysed as an athematic neuter noun *h₁eǵʰ-óm and assumed to mean "my presence" by folk etymology. ❋ Unknown (2008)

However, Jasanoff reinterprets thematic verbs like *bʰer- as originally athematic roots thus *bʰēr- which originated from subjunctive forms in *-e-. ❋ Unknown (2008)

Likewise then, we might posit that *ker- is underlyingly an athematic root *qēr- both with an update of plain *k to uvular *q, and athematization of this root à la Jasanoff. ❋ Unknown (2008)

Despite the madness, we can thank our lucky stars that the athematic primary and secondary 1ps, 2ps, 3ps and 3pp endings are securely reconstructed as *-m(i), *-s(i), *-t(i) and *-ént(i) respectively, but the 1pp and 2pp endings are our bratty problem children. ❋ Unknown (2008)

In Jasanoff's view however, thematic verbs (e.g. *bʰér-o-h₂ 'I carry') are underlyingly the original subjunctive forms while athematic verbs (e.g. *h₁éi-mi 'I go') are archaic presents. ❋ Unknown (2008)

I presume that the reason for this infixing is not because the schwa was an actual animatizing morpheme but rather by analogy with the fact that most animate stems happened to be thematic (i.e. stems ending in a schwa) while inanimate stems tended to be athematic (i.e. stems ending in a consonant). ❋ Unknown (2008)

The phrase "while inanimate stems tended to be inanimate (i.e. stems ending in a consonant)" should have read "while inanimate stems tended to be athematic (i.e. stems ending in a consonant)." ❋ Unknown (2008)

Of course, that all begs the question as to whether the athematic nom. sg. ending *-s and athematic pronominal nom./acc. (better "abs." for absolutive) sg. ending *-d are indeed from postclitic demonstratives/articles, as opposed to coming from some other source(s). ❋ Unknown (2008)