Odp: [tied] PIE grammar made simple (1)

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 7226
Date: 2001-04-27

 
----- Original Message -----
From: Andrei Markine
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, April 27, 2001 4:22 AM
Subject: Re: [tied] PIE grammar made simple (1)

> Sounds like the distinction between IE aorist/durative is quite similiar to that between Slavic perfect/imperfect aspects. Is it coincidence or can the disticntion be traced from IE to Slavic?
 
Some Slavic verb categories have an IE basis, so the similarity is not entirely coincidental, but the various Slavic verb systems have undergone radical restructuring even since Proto-Slavic (which still had tenses called "aorist", "imperfect" and "perfect"). Perfectivity in Slavic is typically connected with the use of prefixations (e.g. Russian znat' 'know' [imperfective] : u-znat' 'find out' [perfective] -- something that PIE did not have). In Slavic, the present-tense forms of perfective verbs have future reference -- this again is an innovation as compared with the functions of the PIE aorist.
 
Piotr