[tied] Re: Kabardian antipassives

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Marco Moretti"
<marcomoretti69@...> wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "petegray" <petegray@...> wrote:
> > > Also, the meaning of the
> > > perfect is not so much completion as having an enduring effect.
> >
> > This is partly true of Greek, but are we right to read it back

into

> PIE?
> > Even in Greek the "resultative perfect", showing the result of an
> action
> > continuing up to the present, is not found as early as Homer (see
> Szemerenyi
> > p293). We do find very early the perfect used for actions which
> continue
> > in their subject, which is closer to a stative, or an

antipassive.

> A large
> > number of Homeric perfects indicate attitude or mood, and they
> describe the
> > subject, not the object (e.g.: is ablaze,is astir,is undone,

fits,

> has as a
> > share, etc). Verbs which are transitive in later Greek are often
> > intransitive as perfects in Homer. (See Monro's Homeric Grammar,
> p31).
> >
> > The perfect in Skt is one of three past tenses which at times are
> not to be
> > distinguished, and when they are distinguished, even scholars

fight

> over the
> > difference. In Latin the completion is a stronger element than

the

> > enduring effect. (Remember Cicero's one-word speech, "vixerunt",
> meaning
> > "their lives are over."; and Vergil's fuit Ilium = Troy is no
> more) In
> > Germanic it appears, in strong verbs, simply as the simple past.
> >
> > The meaning of the perfect in PIE is hard to establish. It

appears

> to be a
> > highly marked form of the verb, which may have connections in

form

> to the
> > middle, and connections in meaning to a stative. But it does

seem

> to
> > describe the subject, not the object.
> >
> > Peter
>
>
> Probably something similar also exists in Etruscan, if /zivas/
> = "life is over" (i.e. "he/her/they died"). A thorny topic.
> Probably some light could be shed on it by /...fler zivas.../
> found in Liber Linteus, less ambiguous than other attestation.
>
> Marco

Perhaps the first syllable "Zi-" is an onomatepoeia and means or is
connected to breathe/breath?

(Like sumerian: "zi" and english: "sigh"?) And perhaps
etruscan "zivas" and lemnian(?) "zivai" mean something like:

stopped to breathe
end of breath
ceased to breathe
out-breathed

Norwegian parallels are the archaic expressions

Utåndet = outbreathed (for the last time)
Trakk sitt siste sukk = Drew his last sigh

I guess expessions like these may be found in many other languages.(?)

Regards,

Morten