Miguel:
>With the "post-Anatolian" phonetic developments (loss of -h2, *-�t > *-eh1)
>this would have given:
>
>*-�: *-�m
>*-�: *-�t
>*-�: *-�nt
Are we talking about actual Indo-European or Klingon? I really
find these "hypothetical" conjugations for a language already well
reconstructed as somewhat... dare we say... illogical. We all know
that the above is not reconstructed for IE and there is no evidence
for such. Of course, this wouldn't stop Miguel from pulling rabbits
out of a hat.
By the way, the perfect endings (not stative, PERFECT!) are ancient,
there is no doubt. They originally were used to mark stative verbs
but this is in *Pre-IE* stages, not IE itself which defined verbs
according to the durative, aorist and perfect aspects. IE proper
was more concerned with the manner in which an action or state
occured and not with tense or with whether it was active or stative.
Hittite doesn't represent some active-stative stage of IE at all.
Anatolian languages come from IE like all other branches and derive
from this triaspectual system. In other words, _all three_ aspects
carried *BOTH* active *AND* stative verbs by the time Anatolian
split away from the rest of IE. So it's no wonder that some verbs
don't conform to the active-stative model that one might impose on
the mi- and hi-conjugations.
The origins of the IE perfect
-----------------------------
My views on the origins of the IE perfect start with the understanding
that the system of durative-aorist-perfect is not the state of affairs
in earlier Pre-IE stages. In fact, the system must have underwent many
steps over the thousands of years prior to IE. This is now how I see
the system evolving from IndoTyrrhenian (c.8500-7000 BCE) to IE proper
(up to 4000 BCE). It happens in four main stages:
(1) transitive intransitive
| |
| |
(2) active stative
| |
-------------------- |
| | |
(3) durative aorist stative
(ongoing active) (abrupt active) |
| | |
| | |
(4) durative aorist perfect
(ongoing incomplete)(abrupt incomplete) (complete)
As the purpose of the aspects shifted, so too did the selection of
verbs under their wings. So, for example, if we have a verb like
"to push", we know that it's "active" in stage 2 and it most likely
would have been given the *m-set of endings. As the system shifted
to stage 3, we would have to make a decision as to which aspect
it belongs - durative or aorist. Again from stage 3 to 4, the
purpose of the aspects had changed once more and some stems from
certain aspects had shifted to other aspects. Perhaps that explains
*o-grade duratives...
It's also important to note that once the system had fully changed
from an active-stative system (stage 2 and 3) to a system of
durative-aorist-perfect (stage 4), the originally "stative" verbs
would have found themselves under the wing of the new "perfect"
which did not necessarily describe only states but now also actions.
So, some stative verbs stayed as "perfect", others became aorist or
durative, depending on the nature of the state as implied by the
meaning of the verb in question.
What do I mean by that? Well, I mean that all states are not created
equal. Some states are the result of an action, such as "I am gone".
Others are not such as "I am". This would have been a determining
factor in whether a stative verb became durative, aorist or perfect
as the system moved into stage 4. Thus *woid-xa "I know" is a
resultative state, the result of me going to a library and reading
books, let's say. Whereas, *es-mi "I am" is an ongoing state without
beginning or end, great for the durative aspect.
Anyways, I just had to get that out because it seems that Miguel
is confusing the pre-IE active-stative system, together with IE's
durative-aorist-perfect system, together with the post-IE tensual
system of imperfect-aorist-perfect found in some IE languages. If
we fail to keep these systems fully distinguished, we end up with
confusion.
- gLeN
_________________________________________________________________
Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device:
http://mobile.msn.com