On Sat, 28 Feb 2004, P&G wrote:
> > > >The Latin imperfect and pluperfect subjunctive
> > > > in preterital contexts.
> > > In those constructions, it is the main verb which marks the time.
> The
> > > subjunctive has lost all time reference.
> > I can't agree with such a characterization of Latin.
>
> I seldom insist that I'm right, but here I am. Any time reference is
> carried by perfective stem, not by the subjunctive. In the
> constructions
> referred to, once you have chosen your main verb, you have no choice of
> subjunctive, except between present or perfect stem. The difference
> between
> those two indicates the time of the action. Where there are no choices,
> there is no meaning. We cannot contrast present and imperfect
> subjunctives
> (in the construction under discussion). Any meaning is carried by the
> choice we do have - the continuous or perfective stem.
>
> Gildersleeve and Lodge (a standard Grammar of Latin) page 170:
> "The realisation of the idea may be in suspense, or it may be beyond
> control
> The first, or purely ideal Subjunctive, is represented by the present and
> perfect tense; the second, or Unreal, is represented by the Imperfect
> and
> Pluperfect."
>
> Your quotation from "a familiar Jakobsonian description", that "tense
> marks
> the time of an action" etc., is no doubt true and wonderful and good -
> but
> it does not refer to tenseless verb forms such as subjunctives.
>
> > "unreal conditions"
> >Does
> > anything other than pragmatics tell us the situation is "present"?
>
> Here you seem forced to admit that the imperfective subjunctive does not
> carry a tense.
You *are* right, only it is not the whole story. I guess I started this by
suggesting a derivation of the *form* of the Latin imperfect subjunctive
from the stem of an inherited subjunctive which was analogically marked
with imperfect endings. I was told this is nonsense for the subjunctive
does not express tense at all. I would give up anything that falls in the
face of facts, but that is not the case here:
The Latin imperfect subjunctive is what the present subjunctive is
transformed into if the overall setting is shifted to the preterite:
dico (dicam) quid faciat : dicebam (dixi, dixeram) quid faceret "I say
what he does : I said what he did".
In the same way, quid fecerit "what he did/has done" and quid facturus sit
"what he will do" are replaced by quid fecisset and quid facturus esset.
The same ipf.sbj. forms, however, are used in unreal hypothetical
sentences: si scirem 'if I knew'.
The IE basis of this is twofold: preterite and optative. Greek uses the
imperfect or aorist indicative (with an) in unreal hypothetical sentences;
Hittite uses the preterite (with man); Armenian uses the imperfect or
aorist indicative. But Vedic uses the optative (of appropriate aspect
stem), so does Tocharian, Lithuanian and Slavic use their conditional (old
aorist optative), Gothic uses the optative of the preterite. Albanian uses
the imperfect with the particles of the subjunctive.
Old Irish acts like Latin, using the preterite of the subjunctive (which
is in OIr. precisely the subjunctive stem with the endings of the
imperfect).
This looks related to the Greek rule of replacement of the subjunctive by
the optative in preterital settings (oblique optative): The transfer of
the subjunctive to the preterite makes it into an optative. Transfer to
the past also expresses transfer away from reality. But beyond that I
don't know exactly what to make of it.
At least in some uses the imperfect subjunctive is really the past of the
(present or tense-unmarked) subjunctive. That may not be sufficient to
explain all of its uses (yet again, it may), but it surely is enough to
cause it to arise.
I still do not insist upon it, for it is based on the second person:
*weg^h-s-esi rhyming with *esi, therefore ipf.sbj. in *-se:s rhyming with
*e:s. On top of this it works with the augment, which however scares me
less.
Jens