From: Andrew Jarrette
Message: 36483
Date: 2005-02-25
> 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?
One point of Reference is Monro's "Homeric Grammar". It's an old book, but
still in print, because it's still useful. Section 28 reads:
"The perfect denotes a lasting condition or attitude ...we shall usually
find that the perfect denotes a permanent state ... the so-called perfecta
praesentia are merely the commonest instances of the rule ... Note the large
number of Homeric perfects denoting attitude, temper, &c. ..Verbs expressing
sustained sounds, esp. cries of animals, are usually in the perfect ..."
He gives bunches of examples. I have read somewhere (I was expecting to
find it in Monro, but it must be elsewhere) that over 60% of all Homeric
perfects are expressions of attitude or condition, rather than the result of
previous action.
Examples:
dedorke is gazing
dedakrusai you are crying
dedekso are waiting
pepote:atai are flying
kekme:ka I am weary
eolpa I hope
teTe:pa I am amazed
deideKatai he welcomes
gego:ne shouts
bebruKe roars
and so on
Peter
Thank you for educating me on this point, Peter. I never knew that Homeric "perfect" forms had such explicitly present meaning. But that raises two questions: The first, that if scholars were aware that in Homer the perfect most commonly expresses a present tense (condition or attitude), why is it that the traditional view is considered to be that the perfect (stative) expresses a completed action, or a present "state resulting from previous action or experience" (thus in Sihler)? Did the traditional IE linguists discount these Homeric "perfects", or did they not know about them? (I actually have never read the traditional view anywhere, but am aware of the definition of "perfect" as a verb tense, which is then applied to these Greek forms which had perfect meaning everywhere but in Homer, I take it.) And the second: how did a Homeric "perfect" with explicitly present, stative meaning evolve into a form which indicated completed, no-longer-occurring action or experience? Why would it evolve so? Do these questions not occur to you?
Regards,
Andrew