Re: Stative Verbs, or Perfect Tense

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "aquila_grande"
<aquila_grande@...> wrote:

>
> I am aware that the perfect/stative forms came to be used as a
> simple past tense in Sanskrit and Germanic. But the Germanic
> preterite-present verbs are a clear example of perfect/stative

forms

> being used with present meaning (some of which, Sihler says, could
> be understood as arising from completed past action, but he points
> out, as I believe you did as well, that any present tense verb

could

> be so analyzed). I guess much will remain a mystery in IE
> linguistics.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
>
> As far as I know, at least some of the Germanic preterite-presents
> are a reinterpretation of the basic meaning of a verb with

preterite

> meaning, and cannot be given as evidense for an original present
> meaning of the perfect.
>
> The classical example is the verb to know. Scandinavian vet/veit -
> knows. This is actully a reinterpretation of the indoeuropean
> perfect form (we)woid-e - meaning "have seen". Actually, the
> original meaning was the past tense of a verb (have seen/saw) that
> implied the present tense of another state/action (knows).

'see' is an event.
'know' is a state.
An event is a transition from one state to another.
The inchoative derivation of a verb denotes the event that leads to
the state that the verb denotes.
In some Russian verbs the perfective must be understood as
inchoatives: znat'/uznat' "know"/"get to know",
videt'/uvidet' "see"/"become aware of". So verb forms that denote a
state and the event that leads to it may be part of the same system.
Does that mean the perfect in Greek should be understood as the past
of a corresponding inchoative verb? So 'he started to look' = 'he
looks'?


Torsten