Resumen de Root enlargement or stem-forming *-u-? PIE *(s)teh2u- beside *(s)teh2- ‘to stand up’, *terh2u- and *senh2u- as against *terh2- ‘to cross, overcome’ and *senh2u- ‘to reach’ and others
Verbal stems of the type CéC(C)-u- (or CC(C)-é-) / CC(C)-u-´ are attested for some PIE roots, at least in one of the oldest languages, either as the only present stem or beside root presents and/or stems marked by means of other suffixes. The present contribution focuses on the evidence for some verbal lexemes from which -u-stems have been formed, and aims at the identification of -u- either as a root-extension, or as a stem-forming morpheme (either as an aspect marker or as an Aktionsart marker) in the languages where they occur, and eventually in Core Indo-European and/or in Proto Indo-European. It relies on three assumptions: (a) if the semantics of the -u-formation and of the non-enlarged root of one given lexeme is the same, -u- may be considered as a root-extension: this is e.g. the case with the reflexes of *(s)teh2-u- beside *(s)teh2- ‘to stand up’, as attested in several languages. (b) if the -u-formation (or thematized *-o/e-) of a lexeme is its only present stem, it may be considered as a (fully grammaticalized) aspectual marker (“-u-present”), e.g. Gk. ἐρύο/ε- ‘to draw, take (by force)’ (from *erh2-u-) beside aor. °ηυρᾱ- ‘stripped violently’ (*(e)h2-). (c) if the -u-formation stands beside another stem (: the present stem proper), it may be (or have been) an Aktionsart marker: if it has no recognizable specific semantics, on may assume that Aktionsart has once existed, but has vanished in a previous phase; if it has specific semantics as against a non-enlarged root-present or another type of marked presentstem of the same lexeme, -u- may express an Aktionsart which may be recognized in a contrastive approach. On the strength of the cross-linguistic evidence for *ĝerh2-u- ‘to grind down’, *terh2-u- ‘to overcome’, and *senh2-u- ‘to roast’ as against their counterparts *ĝerh2- ‘to grow/make old’, *terh2- ‘to cross over, pass through’, and *senh2- ‘to reach’, an attempt is made to show that the -u-forms express high transitivity, and that their avatars in the daughter languages reflect specific lexicalizations of this original function.
