Verbal stems after suffixation with "-ito"

[Michael Zwingli]

Hi, all.
Does suffixation of a verb with a verbal suffix such as the frequentative -ito alter the stem or "concieved root" (whatever that means) of the verb? This seems to me to be so, but I want to verify. Example: for musso the stem is muss-, and so yeilds the noun mussatio; for mussito, the stem is mussit-, and so yeilds the noun mussitatio, no?

 

[Michael Zwingli]

To expand upon my question above, Allen & Greenough discuss stem building from root bases in sections 24-28. I have read and reread those sections, and found some elucidation there. That A&G discussion is short, however, dealing mainly with the process of inflection, and I remain unclear about whether stems are built by derivational suffixation, or only by inflectional suffixation. I guess that is my specific question: does derivational suffixation change the stem of a word?

 

[Bitmap]

Frequentative suffixes routinely turn verbs into verbs of the a-conjugation following the -avi, -atus pattern in the past tense and the participle.

So, for example, there's cubo, cubui, cubitum, but the frequentative would be cubito, cubitavi and ... well, there seems to be no evidence of a participle, but it's easy to imagine that the suppine would be cubitatum. I hope that answers your question.

 

[Anbrutal Russicus]

The present stem of mussāre is mussā-, but most frequentatives and abstract nouns are formed along (wouldn't say "from") the perfect participle stem: mussāre > mussātum > mussātiō/mussātūra; condere > conditum > conditiō; salīre > saltum > saltāre; pingere > pictum > pictāre. -itāre seems to be affixed to the bare root, replacing the thematic vowel, as in mussitāre. In addition there seems to be a rule in Latin that all new suffixes must be vowel-initial, so you get reanalysis like voli+tāre > vol-itāre, catu+lus > cat-ulus.

So basically I think you're thinking in the wrong direction. There's no one stem (often there's not even one root, e.g. Ablaut), and suffixation doesn't change the stem, it's formed to one or another of these stems - the question is only which, and where does it end and the suffix begin. It also results in a new stem.

Interesting to note that the older -men(tum) nouns are formed to the present stem, or even to a version of it that sometimes even lacks the nasal insert or thematic vowel - pingere > pigmentum; movēre > mōmentum~movimentum. I doubt it makes sense to talk of them as derived synchronically though, rather they've been inherited, formed according to the rules not of Latin but of its parent language; that said figmentum seems to spring up only post-classically (evidently modelled after pigmentum), so these older patterns can be persistent.

 

[Michael Zwingli]

Thanks,`Anbrutal. I have had instruction on the essential difference between root, stem and base from a reference grammar that I refer to from time to time (Allen & Greenough's). The authors there use the term "stem building", but without a great deal of exposition, in what is a brief treatment. That is understandable, as it is a reference grammar, not a text on morphology. So, the process of what those authors refer to as "stem building", the ways that may happen, remain unclear to me. I have the impression that the stems and coordinate bases of Latin words do somehow increase with both the derivation and inflection of words, for what else can be meant by saying that stems are "built"?

The present stem of mussāre is mussā-...There's no one stem (often there's not even one root, e.g. Ablaut), and suffixation doesn't change the stem, it's formed to one or another of these stems - the question is only which, and where does it end and the suffix begin. It also results in a new stem.

I found myself pondering what you mean by the comments above, and have made some investigations. After examining some conjugation tables, I seem to discern (hopefully correctly) that groupings of verb tenses (present, imperfect-future, perfect-supine) seem to have what can be bescribed as their own stems, with the present stem the "basic" stem of the group. If this is right, I am led to the believe that stems vary with inflection, which means that stems vary with inflectional suffixation (with the use of inflectional suffixes), which process produces a set of "inflectional stems". I suspect that this is what you were referring to in saying: "There's no one stem." It seems to me, though, that "stem building" also occurs in Latin with derivational suffixation (with the use of derivational suffixes), and I suspect that this is what you were referring to when you said that: "...It also results in a new stem." Am I thinking correctly about that? If my analysis is correct, then it seems to me that derivational suffixation has the ability to create a new present-tense stem, which stem provides a basis for regular (or occasionally irregular, for instance when a verbal conjugation is irregular) inflection which yields a new set of inflectional word stems. Inflectional suffixation and derivational suffixation, then, seem to work in concert in the process of "stem building", with derivational suffixation creating new basic (nominative case or present-tense) stems, and inflectional suffixation yielding various inflectional stems from a given present stem. Does that sound right at all?

An example which seems to provide evidence for stem building through suffixation from a noun root is given by animus/anima and their derivatives in the following manner. Animus/anima (stem anim-?) + -osus > animosus with animos- as its derivationally "built" nominative stem, and then animos(us) + -itas > animositas with the nominative stem animosit-. In this, we progress from present nominative noun stem anim- to present nominative adjectival stem animos- to present nominative noun stem animosit-.

Our friendly verb musso and it's derivatives seem to evidence the foregoing thoughts regarding stem building as an effect of both derivation and inflection as they pertain to Latin verbs. The present stem of musso is, I think, mussa-, and the verb seems to have a set of inflectional stems as I have described above. Musso yields the nominal derivative mussatio. The Etymology of this is, as you have indicated, generally construed as mussat(us) + -io, with the derivation occurring from the perfect-supine stem mussat-. It seems to me, however, that mussatio can be reanalyzed as the present stem mussa- + -tio; the result in both cases is the same: a third declension deverbal abstract noun. Musso also yields, by derivational suffixation, the frequentative verb mussito (< muss(o) + -ito). If my thinking is correct, and the derivation by suffixation with -ito creates a new set of verbal inflectional stems, including new present stem mussita- and new perfect-supine stem mussitat-. That seems to be evidenced by the fact of the derivation of mussitatio as follows: mussitatio < mussitat(us) + -io, reanalyzable as present stem mussita + -tio.

I wonder if I am barking up the right tree here. I usually like to try to read the etymologies of Latin words as I come across them, both to help with remembering the word as useful vocabulary, an in order to understand the words and the language better. In so doing, I am continually encountering terms like "root", "concieved root form", "stem", and "base". I have thus far accepted the etymologies without any understanding of what these terms mean, but I now realize that in so doing, I have never truly understood the etymologies themselves. I have yet to find a comprehensive treatment of these terms and processes, which I assume would be found within a study of Latin morphology. In the absence of such a study, however, is my thinking on this topic even in the right ballpark?

 

[Glabrigausapes]

In so doing, I am continually encountering terms like "root", "concieved root form", "stem", and "base". I have thus far accepted the etymologies without any understanding of what these terms mean, but I now realize that in so doing, I have never truly understood the etymologies themselves.

I remember balking at A&G's treatment of this matter, most specifically the term 'base' which seems to be a needless abstract-upon-an-abstract. I don't think I've seen other linguists use the term 'base' except instead of 'stem'.

The way I see it, all of these words are historical in nature. The 'root' is an abstract. Whether you study IE or no, you implicitly understand that the form, e.g., venio did not always have that shape since its first appearance in the dawn of time. Rather, you invent something in your head like VEN- (that is *gwem-) which is the idea of 'coming' (as *A&G say) but does not specifically mean 'I come' or 'to come', etc.

'Stem' is the workable morpheme, that is the word 'uninflected', stripped of any recognizable ending. In that sense, while it may not be any less an abstract, it doesn't depend on anything historical. Just because no Roman ever wrote down servo- in a grammar book, doesn't mean that's not precisely how he thought of it in his head. It's the implicit understanding we all have that there is some reasonable connection between me & mine, and he & him, that the two words don't by random chance sound alike. The same sort of thinking that allows a child to reach for a new form, or possibly revive an obsolete one, because he has the morpheme knockin' around in the old dome.

*It's interesting the way they say 'This is what is done in Chinese', which implies that they thought that, at its earliest stage, PIE was not fusional but analytic?

 

[Anbrutal Russicus]

Well, firstly I'd like to suggest that it's a waste of time trying to wrap your head around grammatical phenomena you don't intuitively understand. When I talk about grammar, I always procede in the opposite direction, assimilating external descriptions to elucidate and bring out my own intuition. If I don't understand the descriptions, that means I haven't reached the language acquisition stage required to do so, so I just move along and go learn the language itself.

You seem to approach Latin from a grammar-translation point of view, among the many failings of which I would highlight the fact that when you hunger to understand something, G-T gives you a ready-made, pre-digested answer. If you aren't careful and don't treat their answer as merely a roadsign to guide your own understanding, this answer might end up being written on the wall of a dead end. You look for an answer because your brain hungers for something to feed its almost completely unconscious language acquisition machinery on, and only in exceptional cases can that material be grammatical dictums. What it should be instead is level-appropriate material that you can readily assimilate and then correctly reproduce. You absolutely don't need to consciously understand how it works, although some people simply find this fun, me included.

A&G's grammar in particular was written in the German tradition of negrammarians that was entering its 20's, at a time when applied linguistics wasn't a thing and bacteria causing desease was an emerging and groundbreaking theory. It's not a book designed to teach the language, but an introduction to the state of the art as it was 130 years ago. It deals in abstractions not only because it chooses to, but because it has no theoretical underpinnings for anything more precise. Roughly speaking nothing it says should be taken at face value; its main use today is as a very concise and blunt reference for specific grammar phenomena, where it's still serviceable; for everything else, among ancient grammars I'd recommend Lane, a much more descriptive, quotation-laden and generally modern-feeling grammar despite being only 10 years older. In fact it feels more modern than almost anything else currently in use.

But what you honestly want is a proper academic grammar or syntax, like Woodcock 1959 or Pinkster 2015, to be read after you can comfortably stroll through the last chapters of Familia Romana, and to be used as a guided tour through the grammar that book doesn't cover. Or the two big German ones, Kühner-Stegmann and Hoffman-Szantyr, if you can into German - but these can't be "read" in any proper sense of the word.

for what else can be meant by saying that stems are "built"?

Without reading what they write, I wouldn't hesitate to take it to mean "derivation of new stems from old stems".

Does that sound right at all?

I don't think I understand on the basis of what you distinguish inflectional suffixation from derivational; but if I'm not mistaken, inflectional suffixation is properly the same as case/person endings. If you can stick inflections onto a suffix, this suffix is not an inflection, and you're talking about derivation of a new stem.

The term "base", intuitively, refers to the sum of alternating Ablaut grades and thus pertains to historical linguistics more than anything. This is what I'm referring to when I say "there's no one root". Perhaps its best conceived as "one entry in an etymological dictionary".

Your passage on muss- is generally right, with the caveat that all of what you describe is derivation. Inflection is mussō, mussās, mussant - everything after muss- are inflectional suffixes or endings. There's much potential for theoretical pondering here, of course, but that's beside the point.

I usually like to try to read the etymologies of Latin words as I come across them, both to help with remembering the word as useful vocabulary, an in order to understand the words and the language better.

This brings us back to my first paragraph: understanding this comes with being able to (somewhat) unconsciously derive forms according to a pattern. When you read something like "from the root of mussō", the technical details are irrelevant from a language learner's perspective, and trying to understand them in strictly deductive, rule-based terms is putting the cart before the horse and also overestimating the ability of applying mechanical rules to always give correct results.

We learn languages by doing nothing but observing patterns and replicating them. As Hemo Rusticus says, most of these terms are abstractions that should serve as shortcuts to your own unconscious understanding of how words are derived, so that if you're told that X(A) is derived from the root of A, you should be able to derive X(B) if given the "root" B. It's a statement of pattern, not a statement about details, which may be controvertial or even non-retrievable (as many details weren't 130 years ago). Generative grammar is concerned with formal logical statements, traditional grammar is simply not equipped to do anything of the sort. It also creates problems it cannot resolve, such as the reanalysis problem above: who's to say that it must be one or the other, and that these forms can't be synchronically understood by the speakers both ways? Indeed, if they couldn't, the very phenomenon of reanalysis couldn't exist, among other things.

If I make it seem like I'm downvaluing intense deductive analysis, far from it. I'm just saying that language learning is in most cases about something else entirely, and that you should rather apply your analytical skills to modern theoretical frameworks, and look at these ancient grammars like the nebulous dinosaurs that they are.