More on a PIE subjective-objective model

Maybe I'm beating a dead horse, but I don't care. The more I ponder on an underlying tenseless, two-dimensional system for PIE verbs, the more I see many advantages to it as well as some unexpected quirks. My previous description of my model was very tedious, I have to admit, but I think I can now sum my model up more concisely as a conjugation model that takes into account the definiteness of object (subjective vs. objective) and the definiteness of event (eventive vs. non-eventive). These two dimensions together give us four basic categories from which I think we can more easily derive both the system of early Anatolian-Tocharian dialects and that of the remainder, the "Core IE" dialects. I'm going to talk more here about the theoretical evolution of the conjugation system in both these groups from the following system.

	objective	subjective
eventive	*-mi *-si *-ti	*-h₂ór *-th₂ór *-ór
non-eventive	*-m *-s *-t	*-h₂e *-th₂e *-e

The above model sides with simplicity to show an overall pattern. Surely experientials (ie. later sigmatic aorists) would belong in the "objective eventive" despite being unmarked by continuous *-i. However, despite these minor details, a quadripartite scheme with the above characteristic endings as above seems to hold true in general and may help to understand how things evolved later on.


Evolution into Anatolian-Tocharian group

Essentially, it looks like the following general semantic changes help to alter the above system in these dialects:

‣ eventive → presentive
‣ non-eventive → preterite
‣ subjective eventive → middle
‣ subjective non-eventive → hi-class present & preterite
‣ experiential *CēC-s-t replaces *CoC-e in 3ps hi-class past

	mi-class	hi-class	middle
present	*-mi *-si *-ti	*-h₂ei *-th₂ei *-ei	*-h₂ór *-th₂ór *-ór
past	*-m *-s *-t	*-h₂e *-th₂e *-st

Evolution into Core IE group

A different path is indicated for this group:

‣ objective eventive → durative present
‣ objective non-eventive → both preterite & aorist
‣ subjective non-eventive → perfect-stative
‣ subjective eventive → a seperate middle voice
‣ middle present *-r optionally exchanged with *-i from active voice
‣ middle past deletes final consonant in endings by analogy with pattern in active voice

	durative	aorist	perfect-stative	middle
present	*-mi *-si *-ti	*-m *-s *-t	*-h₂e *-th₂e *-e	*-h₂ór/*-h₂ói *-th₂ór/*-th₂ói *-ór/*-ói
past	*-m *-s *-t			*-h₂ó *-th₂ó *-ó