Re: USAGE: Circumfixes

--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Tamas Racsko <tracsko@F...> wrote:
> On 9 May 2004 Richard Wordingham <richard.wordingham@N...> wrote:
>
> > --- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Tamas Racsko <tracsko@F...>
> > We can add the Classical Greek perfect e- - [k/h]-a for roots
> > starting in consonants.
> [...]
> > Does the Greek-Armenian-Indo-Iranian past indicative augment *e-
> > also count as part of a cicumfix with the various past endings?
>
>   I considered Greek augmentation/reduplication before my previous
> posting but I refused in the end.
>
>   I think that in the ending -K-a constituent K is a marker of the
> active mood[*], since it's missing (=replaced by a zero morpheme)
> in medio-passive mood, and -a is a marker of present tense, since
> it's replaced by -ei in preterite, cf. pe.paideu.k.a 'I have
> educated (active present)' ~ e.pe.paideu.k.ei.n 'I had educated
> (active past)' ~ pe.paideu.0.mai 'I have been educated (med-pass.
> present)'.
>
>   Thus it's not a circumfix because its elements are connected to
> different functions: reduplication for the perfect, K for the mood
> and -a for the tense.
You mean 'voice', not 'mood'.  -a- probably marks 'unmarked' past
(i.e. as opposed to imperfect or pluperfect) as it occurs both in the
present perfect and in the aorist.  (In Modern Greek, it now occurs
in the imperfect!).  How plausible a conlang would Classical Greek be?

>   [*] This K is missing after stems ending in consonant, but in
> these cases the aorist marker S is also missing. Therefore they
> have a bodily and a zero variant according to variuos phonotactis
> situations.
For stems ending in resonants (/l/, /r/, /n/), the -k- is generally
present.  As to stems ending in plosives, the -k- replaces a dental.
For labial and guttural plosives, there is no -k-, but the stop is
usually aspirated, so we may see -h- (aspiration) as the realisation
of -k-.  The ablaut patterns are, however, different, and the forms
with -k- are classified as first perfect and forms without -k- are
classifed as second perfect.  A few verbs have both first and second
perfect (with different meanings) and some even have two different
second perfects.  (The -h- and -k- are believed to derive from a
laryngeal in the first and second person singular endings, with -k-
arising in stems ending in a laryngeal.  Possibly the -k- comes only
from the first singular.)

The marker -s- of the first (i.e. sigmatic) aorist active only
disappears after resonants.  There are second aorist actives, which
do not have -s-, but these differ from the imperfect by having the
weak grade of the verb - leipo: (present), eleipon (imperfect),
elipon (aorist) is the classical example.  These two aorists have
different endings in the (past) indicative and optative.  The perfect
of this verb, _leloipa_, is unusual in that there is no aspiration.

Richard.