Re: [tied] Re: Eggs from birds and swift horses

>You are right, only it is not the whole story.
>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'm happy to admit that my assertion is not the whole story.
But can you find any example where the imperfect subjunctive stands in
opposition to the prsent, and carries a past time reference? In all the
examples I can think of, the so-called "imperfect" subjunctive carries a
present reference:
Utinam adesset!
Si adessem, ....
I think we are misled by the traditional label into thinking there is some
connection between the "imperfect" subjunctive and the imperfect tense. But
even in formation there is not.

>The Latin imperfect subjunctive is what the present subjunctive is
>transformed into if the overall setting is shifted to the preterite.

Yes. But the subjunctive built from the infinitive marks action
contemporaneous with, or anterior to, the main verb, depending only on the
choice of infinitive (or stem). Any time reference is carried in the main
verb.

>The IE basis of this is twofold: preterite and optative.

I thought we agreed the formation was internal to Latin.

>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.

The augment in Latin scares me more, but then I'm rather conservative.

Peter