Re: CHAT: History of «ir»

Elliott Lash wrote:
> --- R A Brown <ray@...> wrote:
>
>
>>Elliott Lash wrote:
>>
>>>The Latin is:
>>>
>>>I.  vado vadere vasi vasum  (3rd conjugation)
>>
>>Are the perfect and supine actually attested? The
>>'Lewis & Short'
>>dictionary gives only: vado, vadere.
[snip]

> Well, I think that the forms <vasi> and <vasum>, if
> not technically attested for the simple verb, are for
> compounds:
>    invado, invadere, invasi, invasum
>    evado, evadere, evasi, evasum
Oh yes, so they are - and
pervado, pervadere, pervasi, pervasum

I notice also that _evadi_ is attested as well as _evasi_ as the perfect
of _evadere_.

These compounds are of course literary; AFAIK they didn't survive in
Vulgar Latin. The hesitation in the perfect form of _evadere_ might
suggest the perfect itself was a literary formation. Interesting.

The simple verb _vadere_ is not in fact common in literary Latin of the
Classical period (the Classical writers have a marked fondness for
compounds verbs anyway), so it may be just a coincidence that the simple
perfect is not found in any literary texts. But the evidence of the
Romance languages does make me wonder if the verb did in fact only exist
in the 'present stem' forms in the spoken language. It would partly
explain why the modern verbs "to go" are suppletive in the Romance
languages, with IIRC the exception of Romanian which has "a merge."

--
Ray
==================================
ray@carolandray.plus.com
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
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Nid rhy hen neb i ddysgu.
There's none too old to learn.
[WELSH PROVERB]

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