Re: CHAT: History of «ir»

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. Thus according to the dictionary it
existed only in 'present stem' (infectum) forms. If there were a supine
one would expect it to be *vasum. But there would be other possibilities
for the perfect. Are forms derived from *vasi actually attested?
(Genuine question)

> II. eo, ire, ii, itum
The perfect was found as _ivi_ or _ii_, tho the latter was the norm in
compound forms.

> III. sum, esse, fui, 'esum' (this is surely made up!)
The supine is most certainly made up. Indeed, the future participle
_futurus_ surely suggests that if a supine were used it would have been
*futum.
[snip]
> ______
>   I'm not entirely sure what is weird about this,
> except for the infusion of the fu- root from
> <sum,esse>. Iberian is different from other Romance
> varieties in that it retained a few more <eo, ire>
> forms. But even French still has <irai> not <*allerai
> or or maybe *audrai>.
Yep - I'm not sure either what is weird about this. Or rather, I see
nothing any more weird than the sort of suppletion we have with the verb
"to be" in English.

As for those fu- forms in Iberian Romance, they surely arose from a
usage similar to what one finds in some forms of English where "have
been" is often used "has gone" (e.g. He's been to London many times before)

The Romance languages show surely that the 'little verb' _ire_, which
for the most part looks like all endings and no stem, was just that: too
much ending and not enough stem to maintain itself in full in the spoken
languages. Just a few of the 'more robust' bits hung on, but they were
not the same bits everywhere.

Clearly _vado, vadere_ stepped in, so to speak, to fill in some of the
gaps. It found its way into written Late Latin with the meaning "go"
also. But as AFAIK it had no perfect tense forms, something else had to
replace the Classical Latin _i(v)i_ - in Iberia they just doubled up on
the use of _fui_ etc.

The origin of the French _aller_ and Italian _andare_ and, indeed,
Iberian _andar_ (walk, go) is usually given as Latin _amblare_
(classical: _ambulare_) "to walk" - but this is not accepted by
everyone. The change of _mbl_ to _ll_ in Gaul and _nd_ in Iberia & Italy
is certainly odd.

If my memory is not entirely failing, I recall that in Swiss Romansch
forms derived from from Germanic g- stems (cf. go, gehen) have found
their way into this suppletive verb to 'fill in some of the gaps' - but
I need to check that out.

But that the verb "to go" should show such suppletion in some languages
does not seem to me any more or less weird than the suppletion shown by
"to be" in Germanic, Romance & Celtic langs.

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

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