Thanks for your answer.
Regarding Hittite, I believe that a lot of the characteristics of Hittite (endings, paradigms, etc.) are not shared by other Indo-European languages, and therefore one might be obliged to consider Hittite as being outside the original Indo-European system -- related, but independent in many respects. Thus I would not consider the Hittite evidence as being a strong indication that the "perfect" should not be regarded as a (past) tense. Of course, I'm no expert, I'm more of a dilettante, but this is the impression I have of Hittite.
I knowingly did not address Sihler's statement that in Homer and the Rgveda the "perfect" expresses a state. But Sihler makes this blunt assertion without any more information, such as examples, to give one an idea of what he is talking about. I would like to read those sections of Homer and the Rgveda where the "perfect" occurs. Is it certain they indicate states that have not been arrived at by the completion of an action? Perhaps in these cases too, one may translate the verbs in the "perfect" form as regular English perfects, indicating completion of an action.
I acknowledge, however, that perhaps the "perfect" was not seen as a past tense, but even in modern languages such as English and French the perfect is formed by a verb in the present tense plus a participle, originally an adjective. They often denote a present state as a result of a past action. So one could regard the simple "perfect" as a type of present tense with reference to the past -- and then primary endings in its wider forms would be expected. But there is that reference to past tense, so it would not be entirely tenseless, at least as Sihler describes it.
If tense and time distinctions developed afterwards, then the "perfect" could not have originally referred to a past event. But why would it evolve to become a past tense or tense of completed past action in the attested languages, if such a reference did not already exist? I can't see "Tom has a good time at parties" (tenseless and stative) evolving in a daughter language to something meaning "Tom has enjoyed parties" in the perfect tense. I think the reference to past time, and the notion of termination of an action, had to exist from the beginning!
Yes, stative notions can be recast as eventives. But I am under the impression that "statives" were from the beginning expressions of present state as a result of past events, that I am not recasting them as eventives, but rather that the majority of them were eventives to begin with. (I am aware that I haven't read all the texts that you or Andrew Sihler has, so I'm just talking off the top of my head, but I feel what I say makes probably as much sense as what Sihler does -no disrespect intended).
Finally, I can accept the theory of stative verbs, but I still, like Szemerenyi, do not see that the evidence is overwhelmingly in favour of it as opposed to the traditional idea of the "perfect". I'd be most interested to read future discussions of this facet of IE linguistics.
Regards,
Andrew Jarrette
Ottawa, Canada
P&G <G&P@...> wrote:
> The perfect tense as stative:
> What I want to know is, how certain are linguists generally that this
> is the case? Isn't it the case that in all the attested IE languages
> the descendant of the IE stative (as Sihler calls it) is actually a
> past tense, whether indicating completed action or simple past time?
Not entirely. The Hittite -hi verbs are probably derived from the perfect
forms,
but they parallel the -mi verbs in showing both past and non-past tenses.
In Homer (as Sihler says on the page after the one you refer to)
the perfect indicates the state of the subject. This is also common in the
Rgveda.
There are also perfect formations with present meaning in several languages.
It is also worth noting that it was the primary endings (i.e. non-past), not
the
secondary, that were used in
the development of wider forms of the perfect.
This suggests the perfect was not seen as a past tense.
Baldi says something helpful: "In the earliest language, it is likely that
tense was not a grammatical category; temporal relations were
marked by particles and adverbs." (Intro to IE langs p20)
> And some verbs that denote a state or condition
> (i.e. "sit", "lie", "be") Sihler says did not have stative forms.
> Does this suggest that what he terms "stative" endings perhaps were
> not primarily used to indicate a state or condition?
Other languages that have statives, like Hebrew (I cannot speak
for the Slavic langauges) have a good number of verbs which might
seem to describe states, but are not stative in form. They could also
have verbs stative in form, which don't seem to describe states.
This is a natural development, and doesn't negate the original
system or the original
distinction. It's a fact of natural languages.
At least, that's how I see it.
> Sihler says that stative verbs cannot have tenses. But surely
"knows", "has", "is dead", can have a past tense,
Only once tenses and time distinctions have developed.
Besides, Sihler explains himself on page 443 (section 407)
"The main contrast is found in the distinction between states (tenseless)
and such events as are taking place as the speaker is talking - the true
present tense. ... Compare the force of
'Tom has a good time at parties' [(stative and timeless)]
and 'Tom is having a good time (at this party)' [(marked for time)]."
> I see no reason to reject the traditional idea
> that "knows" can be derived from "has seen", "has" can be derived
> from "has taken", ...
Sihler says that stative notions can be recast as eventives. In
saying
these statives can be derived from events, isn't that what you are doing?
> I am not so convinced that the traditional idea of
> the stative as a perfect tense is wrong.
You're not alone. Some people (eg Szemer�nyi) hold on to the traditional
idea. But the new one gives some insights, explanations, and understandings
that may be worth sacrificing the old idea for.
Peter