From: Patrick Ryan
Message: 40030
Date: 2005-09-16
----- Original Message -----
From: "nathrao" <nathrao@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, September 15, 2005 5:08 PM
Subject: [tied] Re: IE thematic presents and the origin of their thematic
vowel
> --- 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.
***
Patrick:
I do not know how other native English speakers will respond to your
assertion but, to me, "I carried it home" describes the process rather than
the termination of it. "Home" merely identifies the vector. To express
termination, I would say: "I brought it home." As far as markers, I believe
the ancients were much less forgiving than we are when words were
incorrectly employed. None of this silly nonsense of 'whatever is said is
usage'.
***
> 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'?
***
Patrick:
Probably with -*s aorist for 'walked'; root-aorist for 'drank'.
***
<snip>