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

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

> > 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.

The marker is the "past tense" -ed ending. "Carried" seems to imply
punctuality; "carries/is carrying" do not.

> 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'?

Probably through derived aorists, since iteratives are by nature
durative.

> 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.

Yes, verbs of (sensory) perception are often in a separate category.
I think you're right in saying that the explanation seems to be one
of control (or, rather, lack thereof).

> 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.]

You're talking about the augmentless "past tense" forms, right? I
agree with Sihler in that there is nothing inherently past-tense
about them; on the surface, they are simply unmarked for anything
besides person and number. I say "on the surface" because these
forms tend to have zero-grade of the root (e.g. Gk. _lípon_ vs.
_élipon_), which means they must have been accented on the ultimate
syllable. So the Greek forms cited came from IE *likWóm and *?é
likWóm, respectively. Furthermore, IIRC these forms are usually not
sentence- or clause-final, so we can safely say that they are in the
subjunctive mood. I take this as evidence for IE to have had the
following ancient rules governing its verbs:

1. There was only one finite (or, at least, indicative) verb per
sentence or independent clause.
2. Any verb in a dependent clause was in a non-finite (or, at least,
irrealis) form.

These rules are extremely common in left-branching/head-final
languages. One that immediately springs to mind is Japanese, where
the main verb is generally sentence-final and any other verb is in
a "conjunct form" employing the ending _-te_.

- Rob