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Re: present subj. of 'to be' (was: Fiat Lux)

From:Padraic Brown <pbrown@...>
Date:Sunday, June 24, 2001, 20:44
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.