On 2006-12-29 12:50, tgpedersen wrote:
> Why would anyone want to build a new present based on a future of the
> past? Besides there's the chicken-and-egg question of thematic stem
> and subjunctive aorist.
> Could you spell out in more detail how you think that would have happened?
The aorist is not "the past". It's an aspect rather than a tense. The
injunctive form of the aorist is tenseless, and the subjunctive often
functions as the future. There is no chicken-or-egg problem, since
thematic presents in *-éje-, *-jé- and *-sk^é- (perhaps all of them
ultimately with the same suffix *-jé-) existed independently of the
simple thematics. They all occur in Anatolian, where the simple thematic
type is not attested at all. There is some metrical evidence from the RV
suggesting (though not conclusively proving) that the subjunctive suffix
was -*h1e- rather than *-e-. If so, "simple thematic" looks like a misnomer.
The aorist could not be converted into a present by simply giving it a
primary ending, just like a perfective verb cannot form a present tense
in Russian. In PIE, the present of an inherently aorist root had to be
derived by such means as suffixation, infixation or reduplication. The
interpretation of some aorist subjunctives as "present continuous"
rather than "close future" forms offered an easy way of forming new
presents in a highly transparent way (guaranteed by the full vocalism of
the root). Hence numerous new verbs like PGmc. *kWem-a-/*kWim-i- <
pre-Gmc. *gWém-e/o- replacing less transparent types such as *gWm.-jé/ó-
or *gWm.-sk^é/o-, derived from the aorist *gWém-t, *gWm-ént (subj.
*gWém-e/o-). But e.g. Av. jamaiti: and PToch. *s'&m'&- (Toch.B s'ämt
'you will come') are still aorist subjunctives, not present indicatives.
Piotr