--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:
>
> On 2006-07-30 02:02, raonath wrote:
>
> > Resurrecting an old thread, the idea that bhereti type
>> is subjunctive
> > reinterpreted as present would seem to require that the PIE
> > subjunctive used primary endings. How do we then explain the
> > pculiar mix of primary and secondary endings in the RV
> > active subjunctive (RV middle to Brahmana middle subjunctive
> > seems even weirder, that presumably is not relevant to this
> > question)?
>
> The tenseless (non-reporting) "injunctive" form *bHer-e-t is
> all that we need as the pivot of the change. With the appropriate
> tense markers it becomes a present (*bHer-e-t-i) or an imperfect
> (*e bHer-e-t).
That makes Hittite harder to explain: Why did the secondary endings
become past, rather than remain tenseless? There are also a few
other oddities: If primary endings were present markers from the
beginning, why were they not applied to the "know" forms?
And what was the deal with generic/habitual? Did these require
the injunctive, or could the present be used? If the "aorist
injunctive" could denote generic/habitual (as in RV, and suggested
by the gnomic aorist of Greek), why did the switch to the
primary endings also require the "present stem" for these two
noems?
And coming back to the original question, were there two
subjectives, a "tenseless subjunctive" using secondary endings
and a "present subjunctive" with primary endings? If so, what
was the difference in their meanings, if any?
My problem is that I completely befuddled by how the received
wisdom about the tense/aspect system of PIE could evolve into
what we actually see about the daughter languages.
Nath Rao