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Re: USAGE: Circumfixes

From:Richard Wordingham <richard.wordingham@...>
Date:Sunday, May 9, 2004, 13:08
--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Tamas Racsko <tracsko@F...> wrote:
> On 8 May 2004 "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@M...> wrote: > > > How common are these in natlangs generally? > On 8 May 2004 Scott Barron <scott@E...> wrote: > > Also, I believe German has circumfikhes to mark the perfect
tenses
> > (and past participle?) > > I agree with your analysis that German (and Dutch, Yiddish, etc) > weak past participles is formed by circumfix.
Strong past participles as well, though the latter also use ablaut. Obviously very common. We can add the Classical Greek perfect e- - [k/h]-a for roots starting in consonants. Not sure how we count the reduplicating forms, e.g. vocalic l-e-lu-k-a 'I have loosed' compared to lu-o: 'I loose' where the first /l/ is reduplicated from the stem /lu/, let alone the 2nd perfect, e.g. p-e-pomp-ha 'I have sent' compared to the present pemp-o:. (Note the ablaut as well as a circumfix!) We can also consider the reduplicated presents in -sk- , such as gi-gno:-sko: 'I come to known' compared to the Aorist e- gno:-n or perfect e-gno:-k-a (future gno:-s-omai). Similar formations can be seen in Latin and Sanskrit. Does the Greek-Armenian-Indo-Iranian past indicative augment *e- also count as part of a cicumfix with the various past endings? Richard.