Re: [tied] Stative Verbs, or Perfect Tense

From: aquila_grande
Message: 36485
Date: 2005-02-26

It may be instructive to look at the development of the perfect
tense in modern germanic languages.

In scandinavian (Norwegian), the perfect often denotes a present
state or action that begun sometimes in the past.

However,the interpretation as a real past with implications for the
present, is probably the original one, because this meaning is in
accordance with the meaning of the perfect participle.

The present interpretetion in Homeric and Vedic is not neccessarely
original.

The perfect may be a development of the past forms of some derived
verbs belonging to a "hi"-conjugation.