Talk:Indo-European copula
| WikiProject Languages | (Rated C-class) | ||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|||||||||||||||||
 Archives |
|---|
[edit] *er
Angr, I didn't want to discuss in the text notes, so I'll answer your question here. The source I have to hand right now is Calvert Watkins, American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots (2nd edition) page 23. He does say "probably", so there is scope for a pros-and-cons discussion if you want to write one. --Doric Loon 22:03, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
- I don't have an opinion about it, nor am I aware of a controversy surrounding it. It just bothered me that it said "recent scholarship" without an attribution. Maybe we should follow Watkins's lead and say "This is probably the origin..." instead of "Recent scholarship sees this as the origin..." which IMHO is screaming out for a source. --Angr/comhrá 22:14, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
- OK, do it. --Doric Loon 22:25, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
- Ringe mentions that the copula was commonly unaccented in Pre-Proto-Germanic, and so this would explain how the voiced Verner alternants appear in several languages. This is supported by the fact that PIE *h₁ésmi "I am" appears in Germanic as *immi. This could only have occurred as a result of the assimilation of -zm- to -mm-, which did not affect -sm-. CodeCat (talk) 11:58, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
[edit] Tocharian
Should Tocharian be added for completeness' sake? Apparently, Tocharian seems unique in that there are no attested form for the *h1es-root. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 10:22, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
- Hmm, might be somewhat more complicated than that. [1] 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 15:38, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
- That's a very long page. What exactly are you looking at there? All I saw was same vague discussion of suppletion of the h1es-root in other languages, but I didn't look very closely. —Angr (talk) 15:52, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
- "49.4. A nas- B nes- 'be'" and "49.5. The Copula". 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 20:05, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
- That's a very long page. What exactly are you looking at there? All I saw was same vague discussion of suppletion of the h1es-root in other languages, but I didn't look very closely. —Angr (talk) 15:52, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
[edit] Gaelic Copulae
I would like to challenge the line
"While some grammar books still distinguish the substantive verb from the copula, some treat the substantive forms as assertive forms of the copula;[5] since the verb is in any case suppletive, this is a matter of perspective."
from the section on Celtic languages. I have never seen a source on Irish grammar treat the copula as a form of the verb bí. Often, sentences formed using the copula don't even follow the same sentence structure as would a verb. I fear the contributor has made a mistake and that the reference refers only to Scottish Gaelic. Does anyone have access to the referenced book; Colin Mark, Gaelic Verbs systemised and simplified, Savage (London & Edinburgh) 1986, p21ff.? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.101.96.68 (talk) 15:41, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
