[tied] Re: IE thematic presents and the origin of their thematic vo

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Rob" <magwich78@...> wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "nathrao" <nathrao@...> wrote:
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...>
> wrote:
> >
> > > My gut feeling is that the durative/punctual contrast is not
> > > terribly fundamental in historical terms, [...]
> > > inherently "present" or "aorist" value of a verb was a
> > > function of its meaning, so that it tended to be used in
> > > certain contexts, accompanied by certain adverbs, etc.,
> > > but didn't have to be specially marked for aspect.
> >
> > The thing to do is to look for contemporary languages that have
> > durative vs punctual as a fundamental distinction and study them,
> > to understand how PIE may have evolved.
>
> Modern English actually seems to have such a distinction. For
> example, the verb "carry" has an inherently durative meaning --
> "carries" and "is carrying" mean (virtually) the same thing.
> However, the verb "find" is inherently aorist, since
> "is finding" can be understood only with an ingressive or
> inchoative sense along with the durative.

However, "I carried it home", which is "terminative" (or
accomplishment in Vendler's terminology) and "I carried it"
show no difference in morphology. If 'durative' vs 'punctual' was
a basic, compulsory distinction, I would expect some morphological
marker to distinguish the two.

This gets even harder when PIE supposedly used iterative of
'take a step' to say 'walk', or the iterative of 'take a sip' to
say 'drink'. How did they say 'I walked home' or 'He drank the
whole pot of mead'?

The case of 'find', 'see' or 'hear' (as opposed to 'search out',
'look' or 'listen') also seems questionable. One can see or hear
for extended periods, but these three in their basic meaning cannot
be used in progressive. The explanation seems to be control: These
are all verbs which take a dative subject in languages which do
such things.

Again, verbs whose meaning is 'punctual', like say 'snap', are
used in generic or habitual with no morphological marker to
indicate 'non-aorist' value. This is also said to be have been
impossible in PIE. [But Sanskrit and Greek do allow aorist in
past habitual.]