Talk:alszik

Root forms / derivation?

@Panda10, @Adam78, anyone else —

Do you all have any information on where that medial -ud- comes from in many of the conjugated forms?

From what I can see in the chart at alszik#Conjugation, and from what I've learned about phonetic shifts in general (patterns across multiple languages), it really looks to me like the verb root must be alud-, and that the modern forms like alszom and alszik represent the result of phonetic shifts over time, such that an unattested *aludszik shifted first to aluszik (now described as "archaic"), and thence to alszik. This root alud- is also what we see in the majority of conjugated forms for this verb.

However, the alszik entry in Zaicz's Etimológiai Szótár ("ES", the giant PDF file here) suggests that the -szik attached directly to the al-. If that's the case, what is the -ud- element? And how and why would it appear in only some of the conjugated forms, if it's not part of the root?

The ES points to cognates including the Mordvinic, Khanty, and Samic roots we list over at Reconstruction:Proto-Uralic/ade-#Descendants, and also mentions comparanda in Proto-Turkic *ūdï- and Mongolian унтах (untax). The al- / ol- element in the Ugric languages seems difficult to connect to the ud- element in the Mordvinic languages. Given also the presence of the Turkic and Mongolic roots with an apparent ud- initial, I find myself wondering if at least the Hungarian and Mansi might represent some fusion of the two.

Very interested in any light you all can shed on this. TIA! 😄 ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 23:02, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Új magyar etimológiai szótár (linked in the article: alszik) suggests it is not uncommon for Finno-Ugric *δ to become l in Hungarian (“A fgr. *δ > m. l hangváltozáshoz vö. →fal², →nyél stb.”). Also, -sz is originally a frequentative suffix. That's all I can possibly add. Adam78 (talk) 10:26, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

Hu. al- ~ Mo. ud- correspond entirely regularly, yes. It's conceivable that this Uralic root would have some relationship with Turkic or Mongolian, but the better point of comparison to me looks to be rather Finnic uni (“sleep”) (with cognates at least in Mordvin).

aluszik probably would come from *aludszik, but the -ud- element could be best compared with -odik or otherwise chalked as derivational; such that alszik is then not actually syncopated but rather a morphologically distinct stem from al- + -sz- that never had this suffix (thus, making the current inflection derivationally suppletive). Some sort of suppletion in stance verbs like this (also 'sit', 'stand', etc.) is relatively common, due to how their reflexive or medial derivatives naturally come very close to the base intransitive meaning. --Tropylium (talk) 19:35, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

And alszik is not the only verb with this kind of alternation: cf. fekszik → feküdni, nyugszik → nyugodni, haragszik → haragudni, cselekszik → cselekedni and a few dozen others. Its authors says that d may have been created by the analogy of ad, tud, marad, after the obsolete alunni (today: aludni) etc., aluttam etc. (today: aludtam), apparently pre-lengthening the initial consonant of the suffix (except for the obsolete subjunctive alugyam etc., which is a more complex process), so adtam → aludtam, adjam → aludjam etc. (see pp. 133–137). Adam78 (talk) 11:15, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

This article by László Kálmán says the origin of the different conjugated forms (-sz-, -d-, -v-) of alszik, fekszik etc. remains a matter of speculation, and suggests -d- may have derived from a derivational verb-forming suffix (similarly to -sz-, as noted above). Einstein2 (talk) 20:45, 10 August 2024 (UTC)