Reconstruction talk:Proto-Finnic/teetädäk

The past tense
Is the past tense *teetei correct? In Finnish it's tiesi. Wouldn't that suggest *teeci? --88.114.41.216 12:53, 1 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Can you weigh in on this? —CodeCat 13:44, 1 May 2016 (UTC)
 * IP is correct. It has been sometimes presumed that unstressed *ä+i > Proto-Finnic *ei generally, and > *i only late in Finnish, so that a form like tieti would be regular, tiesi analogical. Similar alternation appears in many imperfect forms in Finnish, e.g. :  or . On the other hand, a recent proposal is that after closed syllable,s *ä+i > *əi > *i already in Proto-Finnic, so this verb would indeed have the PF past stem *teeci-. Likewise e.g.  has a somewhat scarcely attested oblique plural stem kunsi- < . --Tropylium (talk) 21:27, 1 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Short initial syllable verbs don't seem to change . Is it a regular sound law or analogy? --88.114.41.216 16:13, 4 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Regular according to the proposal I just linked. However, only for a/ä-stem verbs: for e-stem verbs, :  has been attested (just as also  :  but  : .) --Tropylium (talk) 21:05, 4 May 2016 (UTC)

Original meaning
The verb must have originally meant "to know the way". Why? Would it be possible that the original meaning was to show the way? --Liedes (talk) 15:10, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Transitivity considerations mainly: the base root is a nominal, and applied to these,  creates intransitive verbs. Deriving a transitive verb such as "to show (the way)" would take either an intransitive verb base, or a "heavier" verb suffix such as . It would also be unusual for a transitive verb to then develop into an intransitive verb without a new detransitivizing suffix being applied. --Tropylium (talk) 16:12, 17 December 2017 (UTC)