Re: [tied] Almost perfect [was: verb agreement in one stage of Engl

On Sun, 12 Oct 2003 17:17:25 +0000, aquila_grande <aquila_grande@...>
wrote:

>I think it is interesting to trace how far back in time the origin
>of the combination auxiliary + perf.part goes. I think it originates
>from proto-IE itself. You find the combination in nearly all
>branches of IE. I also think that the exact meaning of this
>combination as in Germanic may go far back in time (something
>occured in the past that still has a present significance).
>
>The most usual and probably oldest form is the verb to be (h1es-) +
>active pef.part (Agreeing with intransitive subj. or trans. obj).
>The agreement in these two instances are actully equivalent, since
>the subject of an intransitive action usually also is physically the
>object of the same action.
>
>In Latin and Germanic the combination was lost for active transitive
>verbs, since latin/germanic do not have any active perf.part with
>transitive meaning.

I think the Latin "weak" perfects in -v- actually do reflect a periphrastic
formation with a generalized form of the ptc.pf.act. + the verb "to be".
Such a formation would originally have been something like:

ama:vus/ama:va sum > *ama:verum
ama:vus/ama:va es > *ama:vis
ama:vus/ama:va est > *ama:vist

ama:vi/ama:vae sumus > *ama:verumus
ama:vi/ama:vae estis > ama:vistis
ama:vi/ama:vae sunt > ama:verunt

(the last two do not require an asterisk).

This was mixed with the endings of the "strong" perfect, e.g.:

e:m-i:
*e:m-ti:
e:m-it
e:m-imus
*e:m-ite
eme:-re,

resulting in the classic forms:

ama:vi: e:mi:
ama:visti: e:misti:
ama:vit e:mit
ama:vimus e:mimus
ama:vistis e:mistis
ama:verunt e:me:runt

>The use of to have, I think was forced from the need for filling
>this gap.

The "have" construction is present in Hittite as well (nu-za-kan GU4 kunan
harzi "he has killed the cow", intransitive: {LÚ}hesta: .. parsna:n harta
"the hesta-men has kneeled [by the hearth]").

Of course no verb "to have" can be reconstructed for PIE (the verbs used in
these construction: habe:re, have, ekhein, hark-, etc. are not
etymologically connected), so the have-stative or -perfective cannot be
traced back to PIE.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...