Reconstruction talk:Proto-Indo-European/les-

Athematic?

@JohnC5 I noticed that you included an athematic verb here, but is there any evidence that explicitly rules out a thematic verb? —CodeCat 14:00, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

@CodeCat: Interesting question. LIV, Kloekhorst, and Kroonen all explicitly propose an athematic conjugation (with Kroonen saying “An old athematic verb 3sg. *lés-ti, 3pl. *ls-énti.”
Kloekhorst proposes “lésH-ti ?” and goes on to say “It is unclear, however, why we find the geminate -šš- in Hittite (cf. šeš- ‘to sleep’ < *ses-, which is consistently spelled with single -š-). Perhaps id could show the root in fact was *lesH-. The difference between *lešš- and lišš- may be explained due to accentuation: *léss- vs. *less-´.” This seems to be the only direct argument for the root ablauting.
Derksen merely points to the root *les(H)- with no mention of conjugation but adds that the proposed laryngeal comes from Kloekhorst's “attempt to explain the Hittite geminate.”
All together, since I do not know very much about the development of Balto-Slavic thematic and athematic verbs, the only direct evidence seems to be the Hittite *lešš- ~ *lišš- ablaut. Do the Lithuanian (lèsti, lẽsa 3sg.pres., lẽsė 3sg.pret.) and Latvian (lest, lešu 1sg.pres., lesu 1sg.pret.) conjugations provide any insight? —JohnC5 16:56, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

The Baltic terms just reflect thematic inflection like pretty much all Balto-Slavic verbs. There's only a handful of athematic verbs left in those languages. The -ti of the Lithuanian lemmas is misleading; this form is actually the infinitive and comes from the *-tis suffix, which affixed directly to roots so there wouldn't be a thematic vowel. —CodeCat 17:00, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

@CodeCat: So what's the verdict? I'd be fine either way. —JohnC5 17:23, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

I guess we can leave it as it is, but maybe we should list both as we're not sure. —CodeCat 17:35, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

@CodeCat: Fine by me. Should there be some note as to why? —JohnC5 18:18, 30 April 2016 (UTC)