origins of the 3rd declension in Latin and Greek

[pc2]

salutations,

we wanted to understand why there is not the Latin and Greek 3rd declension in Sanskrit.
by what we understand, the 3rd declension comes from ancient words that were contracted in the Latin/Greek nominative, right? if that's the case, then we have an example of a similar phenomenon in Sanskrit:
for example, the root samidh-, in the nominative, is obrigatorily contracted to "samit".
what is the origin of the 3rd declension?
another question: what is the origin of the 1st person -o verbal ending in Greek, Latin and Latin languages (for example, amó, phuó, parlo, falo)? there is the -mi 1st person verb ending in Greek, but, in Sanskrit (an older language than Greek, right?), there is not an -o ending, only a -mi ending (for example, bhunájmi, bhavámi, gráhmi, émi).
NOTE: we put the accute accent to denote long sounds, because we were too lazy to pick up the macron in the unicode table.

TIA,

[Sisyphe]

A very interestive question - or two ! Which is (or are) exactly my speciality and what I hope to teach my students.

I will prepare a complete but not too long answer... But in french, if you permit.

[pc2]

But in french, if you permit.

bien sûr! it's a good opportunity to practice our French comprehension.

[PSAJ]

Hello,


I think I have asked a related question in the French forum.


viewtopic.php?t=18476

My "PIE bible" (Theoritical Bases of Indo-European Languages, W.P.LEHMANN) mentions the origins of -o verbal endings as "When in the late proto-language the thematic vowel was widely extended on verbs as well as nouns, it gave rise to a new ending in the first singular, -ō, as in greek phérō , Latin ferō, and so-on, which gradually replaced the athematic ending" (8.5.5, P181, ed. 1993)

This answers by the way one of the questions I have asked in my previous post (when did the thematic vowels appear ?). And would that mean that Sanskrit was not much concerned by the apparation of thematic vowels ????

I'm sure Sisyphe will add some further comments :-)


Regards,

Patrice

[ode]

I have a question

(désolé mes performances en anglais s'arrêtent là je continue en francais ):

Qu'est-ce que c'est que le sanskrit? je n'en avais jamais entendu parler avant ! où est-ce ou où était-ce parlé ?...

[PSAJ]

Le Wikipedia est un bon début :

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanskrit


Patrice

[pc2]

saluts,

PSAJ, merci pour votre réponse: c'est très informatif.

PSAJ, we don't know if you speak French, so we will answer to you in English.
in Sanskrit, there are thematic vowels. there are thematic and athematic verbs but thematic verbs are the majority.
there are 10 classes of verbs. classes 1, 4, 6 and 10 are thematic and classes 2, 3, 5, 7, 8 and 9 are athematic.
examples:
(class 1 = thematic) bhuu-, bho (root with guna) + a (thematic vowel) + mi (1st person singular ending) = bhavaami ("I am").
(class 2 = athematic) vid-, ved (root with guna) + mi (no thematic vowel) = vedmi ("I know").
in Sanskrit, there is the 1st person verbal ending "mi", as in Greek and PIE, but there is no "ô" ending as in Greek, Latin and most Romance languages.

ode, sanscrit est fondamentalement une langue ancienne d'Inde, mais ce n'est pas parlé aujourd'hui que par un petit nombre de personnes en Karnataka (sud d'Inde). voyez-vous le réference que PSAJ a signalé.

saluts,

[ode]

Merci !

[pc2]

Merci !

de rien!

[pc2]

salutations,

this post is old, but we want to revive it due to a question that is in our mind, that is relevant to this subject.
it regards the Sanskrit nouns with "two stems". for example, भवत् bhavat (present active participle of भू bhuu). this noun - like any other Sanskrit present participle - is very interesting, because, during the declension, it alternates between a strong form (भवन्त् bhavant) and a weak form (भवत् bhavat).
in its declension, Nominative Singular/Dual/Plural, Vocative Sg/Du/Pl and Accusative Singular/Dual receive the strong stem, while all the rest receives the weak stem.
through Deshpande's Samskritasubodhini, we came to know that there are also nouns with three stems. for example, the present participle विद्वस् vidvas, which, during declension, alternates between the strong stem (विद्वांस् vidvaaMs), the middle stem (विद्वत् vidvat) and the weak stem (विदुष् viduS).
look at its masculine declension (strong forms in bold, weak in normal font and middle in underlined):
(Case: Singular/Dual/Plural)
Nominative: vidvān/vidvāṃsau/vidvāṃsaḥ
Accusative: vidvāṃsam/vidvāṃsau/viduṣaḥ
Instrumental: viduṣā/vidvadbhyām/vidvadbhiḥ
Dative: viduṣe/vidvadbhyām/vidvadbhyaḥ
Ablative: viduṣaḥ/vidvadbhyām/vidvadbhyaḥ
Genitive: viduṣaḥ/viduṣoḥ/viduṣām
Locative: viduṣi/viduṣoḥ/vidvatsu
Vocative: vidvan/vidvāṃsau/vidvāṃsaḥ
now, our question: could this "strong/weak stem alternation" have anything to do with Greek and Latin third declension paradigms, like, for instance, the alternation between Greek galax/galaktos, or Latin pavo/pavonis?

thank you in advance,

[Sisyphe]

Ups, shame on me for having forgotten this topic I promissed to answer.

Wait a minute... I will answer, I shall answer, I am going to answer... Just half-billion papers to mark, with an half-billion spelling mistakes (some of my pupils write french as I speak english), and I come back here, in half-billion years.

[pc2]

Ups, shame on me for having forgotten this topic I promissed to answer.

Wait a minute... I will answer, I shall answer, I am going to answer... Just half-billion papers to mark, with an half-billion spelling mistakes (some of my pupils write french as I speak english), and I come back here, in half-billion years.

pas de problème, pas de problème. take your time.