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

----- Original Message -----

From: petegray

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Saturday, April 28, 2001 7:38 PM

Subject: Re: [tied] PIE grammar made simple (1)

> Outside Greek, what evidence is there for the aspect system you describe?

> The formations are clear from a number of IE languages, but their usage
varies enormously.

> Latin shows no difference in usage or aspect between PIE aorist and perfect
tense forms.

 

So does Tocharian. Buth the clear formal difference between the original patterns implies a functional contrast, and since Greek, and to some extent Indo-Iranian, provide us with hints as to what that contrast may have been like, why not use those hints (with due caution)?

> Sanskrit shows no clear distinction at all in usage between the PIE imperfect, aorist and perfect forms (although there is room for debate here)

 

I'd certainly dispute this point. At any rate, Indo-Iranian and Greek agree as to the FORM, if not always as to the usage. Since other branches often show relicts of categories that are more completely preserved in Greek and Indo-Iranian, the latter are more likely shared archaisms than shared innovations (except areally restricted features like the augment, found also in Phrygian and Armenian but not in Anatolian or the western and northern branches).

> Hittite does not show the pattern.

 

True. It's a moot question whether the Anatolian pattern is an innovation derived from a three-aspect system or reflects an older system. In the latter case the aspectual triad would be dialectal (non-Anatolian) IE rather than truly PIE. What we can say with certainty is that PIE had two tenses and at least two very different ways of doing conjugation.

> Slavic has remodelled its verbal system and aspect is a new formation.

 

Slavic (as represented by the oldest dialects) has, despite all the remodelling, traces of the perfect, and shows some well-preserved aorist paradigms (including the long-vowelled sigmatic aorists) contrasting functionally with the (new) past imperfect.

> Germanic has a newly built system, based on PIE patterns.

 

Here, as in Slavic, there are traces of the older usage (e.g. preterite-presents like *wait- < PIE *woide retain the present-tense reference of the perfect)

> So I am left wondering how far we are reading a purely Greek model back into PIE, and how justified we are in doing so.

Uncritical reliance on Greek would be a methodological sin, but the evidence of Greek usage accounts for the existence of different formations and it would be an even worse sin to ignore it. In fact, I have presented the orthodox view of the aspect system, but, time permitting, I'm going to indulge in some personal speculation as well concerning the origin of aspectual distinctions in PIE (with Hittite evidence fully taken into account) :)

 

Cheers,

Piotr