Re: Dropping from the root

Marcus wrote:

> >Originally we had:
> >
> >1 s Mans- the root + an unstressed personal ending
> >                                 (a vowel which later fell)
> >2 s Man-s the root + an infix
> >1 p Mans- the root + a stressed personal ending
> >2 p Mans- the root + a stressed personal ending
> >3 s/p Man(s) the bare root - notice that the final consonant fell
>
> I'm curious about where the infix in the 2s came from. That seems an odd
> trait to have been original to a system. Is there such infixation
elsewhere
> in the language?
Infixation should be common, along with reduplication etc. (internal too:
*gand > *ganond, iterative), although it generally shows up in derivational
morphonolgy, not in inflections. So I, too, have had problems explaining
that. My own explanation is that in the very old language an infix marked
deferential style. This form was restricted to 2nd person and later to 2nd
sg. The generalisation of deferential style is not unknown: think about
English 'you', or Japanese, where 2nd person pronouns, according to the few
I've read about it, are very, very rare.

> Another point I'm curious about is the "stressed personal endings". Are
> these suffixes that happen to attract the stress of the word, or are the
> some type of pronoun.
They are inherited inflections. Think about Latin:

in _amo_ 'I love' the stress falls on the root,
in _amamus_ 'we love' the stress falls on the ending.

> >The infix present in 2s caused the last consonant of the root, an s in
final
> >position, to fall, and the form generated by this phonological
development
> >happened to resemble the one of the 3rd person (encoding both singular
and
> >plural meanings).
>
> What happened to the infix?
Let's assume _u_ is the infix: *mans gives thus _manus_ in 2s. _s_ falls >
_manu_; _u_ in final position generally falls, too > _man_. But _man_ (2s) =
_man_ (3s). A suffix _ut_ (from a clitic personal pronoun) is thus added in
2s. So _mannut_ (2s) =/= _man_ (3s).

> >1 s Mans the long root
> >2 s Man- the short root + a cliticised pronoun
> >3 s Man the short root
> >1 p Mans- the long root + a stressed personal ending
> >2 p Mans- the long root + a stressed personal ending
> >3 s/p Man- the short root + a cliticised pronoun
>
> Is there a reason the cliticised pronouns didn't attach to all the forms?
> There must have been a stage where 3s had to be distinguished from 3p and
> 2s, and it doesn't seem quite right to skip 3s in adding new material.
This phenomenon is however attested in natlangs. My Lombard, for instance:

1s canto > cant > canti
2s cantas > canta > cantet
3s cantat > canta >canta
1p cantamus > cantemm > (analogy with the other persons: the stress shift to
the first syllable) > cantom
2p cantatis > cantee (in some dialects càntov, with a suffixed personal
pronoun)
3p cantant > cantan.

Only 2s and in some dialects 2p add a cliticised pronoun in the present
tense. In the imperfect tense the cliticised pronoun is added in all
dialects to 2p too, though:
2s cantavet but also 2p cantàvov

> >What do you think?
>
> Good historical progression. I'd like to see how this verb look embedded
in
> the larger context of the verbal system. That is, how did these historical
> processes affect the other verbs in the language?
The truncation originated in some verbs where the last consonant tended to
vanish if found in final position (fricatives, unvoiced stops), but quickly
spread: my aim is extending it to the whole verbal system, apart verbs
showing no final consonantal cluster in their root.

The past tense *should* look like this:

mansai < mans-av-i (intervocal _v_ disappears)
mansout < mans-av-ut (a+u > ou /Aw/ - /Ow/)
mansà < mans-av-0
mansayän (y /G/ inserted to avoid a+ä hiatus) < mansa-än < mans-av-ain
mansayeit < mansa-eit < mansaveis
mansàn < mansà + _hen_ (those, they) < mans-av-0

Derived forms are conjugated as new roots:

*mans- gives an iterative (keep on doing smth.) *manons- root.

Using Dirk's schemes, this root can be obtained this way:
root:     mans
circum:   man|s
template: m(an)|
copy:     m(anan)|
surface:  manans

Present
1s manans /ma'naNs/
2s manannut /ma'nannyt/
3s manàn /ma'naN/
1p manansän /manaN's&n/
2p mananseit /manaN'seit/
3p manannen /ma'nannen/

Past
1s manansai /manaN'sai/
2s manannsout /manaN'sOwt/
3s manansà /manaN'sa/
1p manansayän /manaNsa'G&n/
2p manansayeit /manaNsaGeit/
3p manansàn /manaN'san/

No future, no perfectivity syntetically marked.
I want some auxiliaries, too :-)

I'm planning to introduce a subjunctive mood, on the other hand.

> >Onto the other part of the message...
> >
> > > Suffixes are always added to the non-truncated form.
> >
> >Pronominal clitics, too? Or are these agglutinated in front of the root?
>
> Pronominal clitics all occur at the beginning of the word. They definitely
> are not "agglutinated" there. Clitics are separate words that have been
> phonologically attached to a word, while affixes are morphologically
> attached to a word. The distinction can be subtle, but can also be very
> important.
And clitics can always turn into affixes after a given period...

Thank you for your answers,

Luca

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