Re: [tied] Question about IE aspect and tense

From: P&G
Message: 39481
Date: 2005-08-02

> In languages as greek and old Indic you have three aspects:
> Perfective (usually called aoriste), imperfective and perfectum

That's argued! Greek certainly shows this aspect system, but in Sanskrit
the "perfect" functions rather differently from the "perfect" in Greek.
Often in Skt the perfect is scarcely distinguishable from aorist or
imperfect.

It looks as if the daughter languages have taken PIE elements and developed
them in slightly different ways. We certainly can't take the Greek
aspectual system back to PIE, although the elements of it were probably
there.

> You further have the tenses: present, preterite and future,

The future is an innovation in all daughter languages (though again using
elements already existing in PIE).

>but not all tenses [appear] in all aspects. (present only have imperfect).

You are thinking of Greek again. The "perfect" aspect (as in perfect
tense) appears in Greek as a present tense - the past and the future are
later innovations. The "punctative" aspect (as in Greek aorist) appears
best in the non-finite forms, but even here the participle can have a purely
past-tense meaning, rather than aspectual. OUr desire to regularise it all
just won't work.

> Traditionally the aspect/tense system of Greek and Sanskrit have
> been regarded as the original one, apart from the future tense.

No. Long ago, there was a tendency to think Greek and Sanskrit preserved
PIE best, but that idea is long dead. We now know that both languages are
highly innovative, and that the apparent similarity between the two is often
due to the misleading use of Greek labels for Sanskrit morphology. There
are important ways in which they do preserve elements of PIE, and together
they allow use to build up a good picture of PIE, but it must be
supplemented by evidence from other languages as well.

> My queation is this: What tense/aspect system is by now regarded as
> the original in the Proto-IE/Indo-Hettite? Has the traditional view
> been modified on the background of the findings in Anatolian?

It's still under debate. It looks as if the elements are there (e.g.
present-tense markings, perhaps to indicate duration or iterative
ction); -s- forms for punctative (aorist), along side root aorists;
reduplication of at least two different types; statives, which perhaps
become perfects).
There is debate whether Hittite has lost the tense patterns, or whether
the other languages have innovated them. There are probably links between
the perfect tense of Greek and the -hi forms of Hittite; but Hittite has to
be seen as innovative in the way the -hi conjugation has spread.
Some scholars get quite heated one way or the other about this.

Peter