It's not Ojala which makes me think there's a connection between the Conditional and Optative - Edit 3
Before modification by Dan at 28/04/2012 04:33:29 AM
It's that the salient morphological component of both is an "i" and that the functions both perform in language are so similar.
As to the former, less for your benefit than for everyone else reading, I'll give the Conditional of Hablar and them the Present and Aorist Optative of λυω (accents jettisoned because of time):
hablar-ia/hablar-ias/hablar-ia/hablar-iamos/hablar-iais/hablar-ian
λυ-οιμι/λυ-οις/λυ-οι/λυ-οιμεν/λυ-οιτε/λυ-οιεν
λυσ-αιμι/λυσ-ειας/λυσ-ειε/λυσ-αιμεν/λυσ-αιτε/λυσ-ειαν
So that's the morphological part that lead me to see a connection between the two. Perhaps more importantly, both constructions are used to indicate:
(1) Wish
(2) General Potentiality
(3) Past Potentiality, and
(4) Polite Requests.
In addition, the Conditional in Spanish can also be used to indicate both present and past Counterfactual statements. While the Optative doesn't do that in Greek, the modal particle αν does, which is very closely associated with the Optative.
Anyway, those things all jumped out at me so I figured I'd float the thought. It's not even a real thesis of any sort that I'm married to, just an observation I found potentially interesting.
One final small point to suggest a possible connection between the two comes from The Great and Good Wikipedia, which claims that the Optative and the Conditional have identical forms in Romanian, and it's called the Optative-Conditional. Wikipedia also says Georgian has the Optative. This is where I defer to your knowledge of this shit.
As for the Future Indicative deriving from the Aorist Subjunctive, this is something I had learned in class and that Smyth holds to:
"Many, if not all future forms in σ are in reality subjunctives of the first aorist." [532]
Verbs that don't have a weak or sigma aorist, "-σ" is simply added to the strong root, and then the present indicative and middle endings are attached.* I think the implication is that the future took as its stem the weak aorist with the sigma and applied it across the board, even to strong aorists as a sigma to their strong grade stem.
They take the indicative endings, but they took their root from the aorist subjunctive. Two things come to mind that suggest the Aorist Subjunctive over the Aorist Indicative as the root for the Future. First, the Subjunctive seems to have always had a future sense in Greek, and I think in other languages as well if I'm not mistaken. Smyth mentions a few verbs whose futures are "probably old subjunctives which have retained their future meaning" in 541. The second point is that their isn't any kind of augment present, which would indicate its root coming from a 2nd sequence indicative.
Anyway, that's all. It seems I pulled a Joel. Takes me fucking forever to write in Greek on the computer, even without accents.
*So λαμβανω's strong grade λαβον becomes λαβ-σ-ομαι = ληψομαι with the sigma lengthening the previous vowel and the beta becoming a double consonant.
As to the former, less for your benefit than for everyone else reading, I'll give the Conditional of Hablar and them the Present and Aorist Optative of λυω (accents jettisoned because of time):
hablar-ia/hablar-ias/hablar-ia/hablar-iamos/hablar-iais/hablar-ian
λυ-οιμι/λυ-οις/λυ-οι/λυ-οιμεν/λυ-οιτε/λυ-οιεν
λυσ-αιμι/λυσ-ειας/λυσ-ειε/λυσ-αιμεν/λυσ-αιτε/λυσ-ειαν
So that's the morphological part that lead me to see a connection between the two. Perhaps more importantly, both constructions are used to indicate:
(1) Wish
(2) General Potentiality
(3) Past Potentiality, and
(4) Polite Requests.
In addition, the Conditional in Spanish can also be used to indicate both present and past Counterfactual statements. While the Optative doesn't do that in Greek, the modal particle αν does, which is very closely associated with the Optative.
Anyway, those things all jumped out at me so I figured I'd float the thought. It's not even a real thesis of any sort that I'm married to, just an observation I found potentially interesting.
One final small point to suggest a possible connection between the two comes from The Great and Good Wikipedia, which claims that the Optative and the Conditional have identical forms in Romanian, and it's called the Optative-Conditional. Wikipedia also says Georgian has the Optative. This is where I defer to your knowledge of this shit.
As for the Future Indicative deriving from the Aorist Subjunctive, this is something I had learned in class and that Smyth holds to:
"Many, if not all future forms in σ are in reality subjunctives of the first aorist." [532]
Verbs that don't have a weak or sigma aorist, "-σ" is simply added to the strong root, and then the present indicative and middle endings are attached.* I think the implication is that the future took as its stem the weak aorist with the sigma and applied it across the board, even to strong aorists as a sigma to their strong grade stem.
They take the indicative endings, but they took their root from the aorist subjunctive. Two things come to mind that suggest the Aorist Subjunctive over the Aorist Indicative as the root for the Future. First, the Subjunctive seems to have always had a future sense in Greek, and I think in other languages as well if I'm not mistaken. Smyth mentions a few verbs whose futures are "probably old subjunctives which have retained their future meaning" in 541. The second point is that their isn't any kind of augment present, which would indicate its root coming from a 2nd sequence indicative.
Anyway, that's all. It seems I pulled a Joel. Takes me fucking forever to write in Greek on the computer, even without accents.
*So λαμβανω's strong grade λαβον becomes λαβ-σ-ομαι = ληψομαι with the sigma lengthening the previous vowel and the beta becoming a double consonant.
The only languages that I am aware of that have a recorded optative are Greek and Sanskrit. The Spanish expression ojalá is just "Oh Allah" taken from the Arabic and not a remnant of any non-existent optative.
I am also curious where you are getting your evidence for the statement that the Greek future indicative was originally derived from an aorist subjunctive form (at least with respect to the active and middle voices) since in many cases the aorist and future forms differ radically (i.e., any verb for which the aorist doesn't have the sigma before the aorist endings), and the future endings are indicative endings rather than subjunctive ones (i.e., even arguing the future derives from aorist indicative is easier to justify than saying it comes from aorist subjunctive).
I am also curious where you are getting your evidence for the statement that the Greek future indicative was originally derived from an aorist subjunctive form (at least with respect to the active and middle voices) since in many cases the aorist and future forms differ radically (i.e., any verb for which the aorist doesn't have the sigma before the aorist endings), and the future endings are indicative endings rather than subjunctive ones (i.e., even arguing the future derives from aorist indicative is easier to justify than saying it comes from aorist subjunctive).