Re: Stative Verbs, or Perfect Tense

From: elmeras2000
Message: 36495
Date: 2005-02-26

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "squilluncus" <grvs@...> wrote:

> Another title is Pierre CHANTRAINE, GRAMMAIRE HOMÉRIQUE, Paris
1953.
>
> §292: "Le sens originel du parfait est d'exprimer un état qui se
> situe dans le présent, ou, du moins, dans l'actuel."

I think this should raise eyebrows: Why does a Homeric grammar point
out that this is the *original* meaning? If it is the *only* meaning
found in Homer this is a very strange wording. I do not find
explicit mention of cases of simple preterital use of the perfect in
the section, by why is the matter not directly addressed? This
strikes me as very odd.


> For this statement he gives references to Wackernagel Studien z.
> griech. Perfectum, Göttingen 1904 (already!) and his own
Chantraine,
> Histoire du parfait grec, Paris 1927.
> He then gives examples similar to Monro's above.
>
> In the following §§ he states:
> "Le rôle du parfait est d'exprimer un état acquis" …
> (The state has then its origin in the past)
>
> "En même temps que la référence au passé devient sensible, le
> parfait, généralement intransitif, a pu être suivi d'un complément
à
> l'accusatif." …
> "Le parfait leloipa est intransitif: psychè: dè léloipen 'l'âme
s'en
> est allé'. Mais: epeì dè: prô:ta tomè:n en óressi
> léloipen 'maintenant qu'il a quitté l'arbre où il fut coupé'."
> (Intransitivity was the original nature but when something has
been
> done objects will naturally be fitted to the verb).
>
> "On emploie le parfait pour désigner un ensemble d'actions qui
> aboutissent à un état présent: epeì kakà pollà pépontha …"
> (Rendering "after a state of a lot of suffering" might be
> elucidating for Gefühl of the transition from stative in present
to
> something started and accomplished in the past but valid now and
> here).

Does not the word <epeì> 'after, après que' give it away? How can
something be reported as being 'after' the present? This must
contain a past-tense element.

Especially the example with léloipen seems to show this (Il.
1.235): "This stick - it has never produced (literally 'never
produces') leaves or branches since it first left the stump in the
mountains, nor will it blossom". This is a clear reference to a
single moment in the past.

Another case of the same kind seems to be:


Il. 21.81 : hé:de duo:dekáte:, hót' es Ílion eilé:loutha / pollà
pathó:n "it is now the twelfth day since I came to Ilios after much
suffering". Achilles is looking back on the day he arrived in Troy;
that must be in the past.

However, the line between a past event which has repercussions for
the present regarded as a pure event and the same regarded from the
standpoint of the present, is a thin one. Thus the same form is used
in:

Il. 5.204 hò:s lípon, autàr pezòs es Ílion eilé:loutha / tóksoisin
písunos "thus I left them (my horses) at home, and instead I have
come on foot to Ilios, trusting my bow".

But even in this example, the preposition <es> points to a *change*
of position and so is distinctly looking to the past, not the
present.

This all points to a mixing of the points of view, in that an event
may be regarded as something occurring in the past while at the same
time having after-effects of importance for the present, and the
linguistic form of a sentence may even be inconsistent in its choice
of adverbs and other accompanying pointers.

Then, if this so in Homeric Greek, I cannot help thinking that it
could be the same in Indo-European already.

Jens