Mea culpa. Criminally clumsy wording on my part. The IE
injunctive is FORMALLY identical with the preterite, but of
course has no past reference. Note that the preterite is the
UNMARKED tense in PIE, so maybe the injunctive is a survival
of the time when the deictic *i-marking of the present tense
was not yet obligatory (the injunctive has no tense-marker
at all: in Indo-Iranian and Greek it differs from the
preterite by never taking on the augment).
The best-known use of the injunctive in Indic is the
prohibitive construction with <ma:>, as in Skt. <ma:
bhais.ih.> "fear not". It was in this function that the
injunctive survived into Classical Sanskrit (in Vedic it was
used more widely as an imperative). I suppose Sanskrit and
Hittite third-person imperatives in <-t-u> and <-nt-u>
derive from injunctive forms with a dummy enclitic.
The "negator" *me: occurs in prohibitions and "unless"-type
constructions. In can accompany all sorts of imperatives, as
well as subjunctives and optatives -- in brief, modally
marked forms. With plain indicatives, *ne is used. E.g. *ne
bHeret means "he was not carrying", while *me: bHeret means
something like "he mustn't carry". The geographical
distribution of *me: is restricted, so it may be an areal
phenomenon rather than a genuine PIE negator.
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
From: "Glen Gordon" <glengordon01@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, April 28, 2001 7:36 AM
Subject: [tied] PIE grammar made simple (1)
>
> "PIE grammar made simple", that is, unless your brain is
swiss cheese like
> mine. Say, I'm in a mood for fondu...
>
> Piotr:
> >Sorry, I should have written "of the past tense" (not
only the >aorist), as
> >there are also durative ("imperfect") injunctives.
>
> Erh, just past tense? Or can it also be PRESENT-durative?
I have never fully
> understood what the injunctive actually is... Is it just
"may he" or "let's"
> as opposed to "do it!"?? Is the prohibitive "injunctive"
or "imperative"? At
> any rate, one website mentions Coptic /maref-sotm/ as an
"injunctive". It is
> translated as "let him hear, may he hear". The translation
doesn't sound
> like a "past tense"... So excuse me if I say, "Qu? No lo
comprendo,
> se or." Could you give English examples of these
mood-aspects to better
> clarify?
>
> Secondly, what's the scoop on the *me: negator. Is it
supposed to be just an
> injunctive negator or wha'?
>
> - gLeN