[tied] Re: Kabardian antipassives

From: Marco Moretti
Message: 33740
Date: 2004-08-10

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "petegray" <petegray@...> wrote:
> > Also, the meaning of the
> > perfect is not so much completion as having an enduring effect.
>
> This is partly true of Greek, but are we right to read it back into
PIE?
> Even in Greek the "resultative perfect", showing the result of an
action
> continuing up to the present, is not found as early as Homer (see
Szemerenyi
> p293). We do find very early the perfect used for actions which
continue
> in their subject, which is closer to a stative, or an antipassive.
A large
> number of Homeric perfects indicate attitude or mood, and they
describe the
> subject, not the object (e.g.: is ablaze,is astir,is undone, fits,
has as a
> share, etc). Verbs which are transitive in later Greek are often
> intransitive as perfects in Homer. (See Monro's Homeric Grammar,
p31).
>
> The perfect in Skt is one of three past tenses which at times are
not to be
> distinguished, and when they are distinguished, even scholars fight
over the
> difference. In Latin the completion is a stronger element than the
> enduring effect. (Remember Cicero's one-word speech, "vixerunt",
meaning
> "their lives are over."; and Vergil's fuit Ilium = Troy is no
more) In
> Germanic it appears, in strong verbs, simply as the simple past.
>
> The meaning of the perfect in PIE is hard to establish. It appears
to be a
> highly marked form of the verb, which may have connections in form
to the
> middle, and connections in meaning to a stative. But it does seem
to
> describe the subject, not the object.
>
> Peter


Probably something similar also exists in Etruscan, if /zivas/
= "life is over" (i.e. "he/her/they died"). A thorny topic.
Probably some light could be shed on it by /...fler zivas.../
found in Liber Linteus, less ambiguous than other attestation.

Marco