Re: [TIED]

----- Original Message -----

From: Dan Jones

To: cybalist@egroups.com

Sent: Monday, June 12, 2000 6:28 PM

Subject: [TIED]

 

Hi, Dan, welcome to the list.

 

The dual is difficult to reconstruct because it's a rarely used category. Besides, dual forms of verbs are well attested only in Greek, Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian (the few examples found in Tocharian and Gothic aren't of much help). Here is the usual PIE reconstruction (*x = the a-colouring laryngeal [h2]):

 

Active

 

1. present *-we-s, preterite *-we

2. present *-to-s, preterite *-to-m

3. present *-to-s, preterite *-tax-m

 

Dual forms of the perfect are scarcely reconstructable (probably *-wé in the 1st person), and mediopassive endings are rather insecure except for the 1st person (*-we-s-dH@... in the present, *-we-dh@... in the preterite).

 

As for aspects -- depends what you mean by "aspect". For lexically expressed shades of meaning (iterative, inchoative, durative, intensive, etc.), there were specialised affixes and derivative processes like reduplication. E.g. *gWHen-ti meant 'strikes, kills' vs. *gWHn-sk-e-ti 'strikes again and again, goes on killing'; *bHer-e-ti 'carries, is carrying' vs. 'bHi-bHer-ti 'is carrying about'.

 

If you mean the aspectual function of PIE "tenses", that was expressed by grammatical means ("present" [imperfective]/"aorist" [perfective]/"perfect" [stative] stems). A verb could be inherently imperfective (e.g. *swep- 'sleep') or perfective (*derk- 'notice'), in which case its counterpart was created by derivational means (e.g. *di-drk-sk-e- 'watch, look attentively):

 

*linekW-ti 'is leaving/releasing' (present stem with a nasal infix)

*(e)linekW-t 'was leaving, used to leave' ("imperfect" = present stem with a preterite ending and an optional past-tense "augment" *e, also used with the aorist)

*(e)likWe-t 'abandoned, released, let go' (aorist stem)

*le-loikW-e 'has released, no longer holds' (reduplicated perfect stem)

 

Two further examples: *bHeug- 'escape' and *jeug- 'yoke, bind together'. Note the different ways of expressing the present/aorist (imperfective/perfective) opposition:

 

*bHeugeti, *junekti (present)

*(e)bHeuget, *(e)junekt (imperfect)

*(e)bHuget, *(e)je:ukst (aorist)

*bHebHouge, *jejouge (perfect)

 

Piotr

 

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Hello! I'm new to this list, but I already have a question:

What were the PIE dual verbal inflections?
The Sanskrit endings -vah, -thah and -tah in the present points to IE forms
*-wos *-dhos (?) *-tos, are these correct and what were the forms in the
other "tenses".

Also, how did PIE distinguish the differnt aspects?

Verbs, as you might have noticed is one of my interests...

Thanks in advance,

Dan