On Mon, 26 Aug 2002 02:10:08 +0000, "Glen Gordon" <
glengordon01@...>
wrote:
>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.
That's the "traditional" explanation given to the Hittite hi-conjugation, which
I find unsatisfactory. The (NA)PIE perfect is a preterite, which in principle
can be formed from any verbal root (by applying the appropriate Ablaut, and,
optionally, reduplication). In Hittite, the hi-conjugation has both present and
preterite forms, and only a closed number of verbs are conjugated in this
manner.
On the basis of Greek, it can be inferred that the (NA)PIE perfect was in origin
a resultative (denoting a state in the present arising from an action in the
past). If the emphasis is on the past action, we get a preterite (the PIE
perfect); if the emphasis is on the state, we get a present (the
preterito-presents of Germanic etc.). The preterito-presents then acquire a new
marked past tense. The Hittite situation is entirely different: the hi-verbs
have an unmarked past tense, and a marked (by *-i, same as in the active)
present tense, which means that the category of hi-verbs cannot have arisen in
the same way as the Germanic category of preterito-presents.
The development stative (state in the present) -> resultative (state in the
present caused by action in the past) -> preterite/narrative (action in the
past) is universal and irreversible. We can get a perfect
(resultative/preterite) from a stative, but we cannot get a stative from a
perfect. We can explain bith the NAPIE and teh Hittite systems out of a
stative, we cannot explain the Hittite system out of a resultative or preterite.
>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)
What is an "abrupt incomplete"??? Sounds like a verbal category in Klingon
(although in Klingon, I'd expect abruptness to be an unmarked category), but not
in any human language I'm aware of. The aorist, being a perfective, is in fact
better covered by the term "complete". As to the perfect, "completed action" is
not sufficient, nor required, to define it.
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...