Re: present subj. of 'to be' (was: Fiat Lux)
| From: | Padraic Brown <pbrown@...> |
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| Date: | Sunday, June 24, 2001, 20:44 |
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On Sun, 24 Jun 2001, Raymond Brown wrote:
>At 6:31 pm -0400 22/6/01, Padraic Brown wrote:
>>Sorry, that should have been "siet". Or perhaps "fuat lux".
>
> :)
>
>I guess before others get horribly confused (and, maybe, wonder if _fuat_
>is a typo for or variant of _fiat_ - it ain't either), I'd better explain.
>
>I assumed Padric's _siat_ was an error for the normal Classical _sit_,
>where Padraic was adding the most comon present subjunctive, -at, used in
>all regular conjugations, except the 1st, and most of the irregular verbs.
>But I see that Padraic meant _siet_ which was one of early Classical
>variants.
Indeed. Twas an accidental conflation of SIem + fiAT.
>
>The vern "to be" is both irregular and suppletive as it is most (all?)
>Indo-European languages.
If we accept languages like Interlingua and Esperanto as I-E --
and even though they are conlangs (as well as dreaded auxlangs),
I think they can certainly be classified as IE -- then at least
a few have "be" that's both regular and nonsuppletive. As far as
natural IE languages go, I don't think I've come across one whose
"be" is not irregular and suppletive.
>But to return to *siat /sIat/ >> /seat/ - this, in fact, is clearly the
>form which developed in Vulgar Latin, cf.:
Then I got it unwittingly right!
Padraic.
>Ray.