Re: [tied] Stative Verbs, or Perfect Tense

This is just a quick response - I'll pick up the bits about Homer later.

>, I believe that a lot of the characteristics of Hittite (endings,
>paradigms, etc.) are not >shared by other Indo-European languages,

But a lot are, including the -hi forms.

> I would like to read those sections of Homer and the Rgveda where the
> "perfect" occurs.

Watch this space.

>Is it certain they indicate states that have not been arrived at by the
>completion of an action?

Are there any such states? Couldn't all states, with a fertile imagination,
be seen that way? But that is diffferent from the pattern we see in Greek
and Latin, where the present meaning is far and away uppermost - e.g.:
Vixerunt (Cicero's famous one-word speech) = They are dead.
Fuit Ilium = Troy is no more.
I quote these from Latin, because the Latin use of the pefect as a past
tense is widely known, and its use in this sense is less appreciated. In
Greek it is the only use.

Peter