From: Patrick Ryan
Message: 40210
Date: 2005-09-21
----- Original Message -----
From: "nathrao" <nathrao@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 20, 2005 12:32 PM
Subject: [tied] Re: IE thematic presents and the origin of their thematic
vowel
<snip>
> > Let me say first that our sight into these matters is always going to be
> > slightly out of focus but, if I am right, -*s specified a singular
> action:
> > "I take a step" as opposed to non-singulative: "I take steps, I walk".
>
> Then what was the root aorist doing?
***
Patrick:
The root aorist was used for verbs that were already singulative: "I hurt
him."
***
> > Obviously, the singulative lends itself to an _implication_ of inceptive
> > (first step) or terminative (last step). 'Terminative' could mean
> 'finish
> > walking' (terminative) as well as 'reach by walking' (perfective).
>
> So, according to you "accomplishments" (in the terminology of
> Vendler) is not a valid category in any language?
***
Patrick:
Of course, "accomplishment" is a valid category in some languages. But one
cannot expect that the earliest language had overt ways of marking such
subtle distinctions of 'perfective'. In English, we do not mark the verb for
such finely split hairs but use other means: "I walked to the store; and
from there, I ran." vs. "I walked to the store, and entered."
***
>
> > "Drink", on the other hand, seems to have been in PIE a description of
> > 'consume a definite quantity of liquid' rather than 'imbibe',
> 'perfective' =
> > 'drink up' (perfective). To mean 'drink (over a period of time)',
> > reduplication was necessary: 'consume (some measure of liquid)
> repeatedly,
> > i.e. iterative.
> >
> > I do not find this strange. Is it strange that 'cut' is transitive
> and 'go'
> > is not?
>
> Find an attested or contemporary language which make exactly the
> same distinctions.
***
Patrick:
If I did, it would mean nothing. Every language has developed its own
peculiar idioms.
***
> > I probably am with you here but I have never run across "polar" is this
> > context. Could you explain further?
> >
> > ***
***
Patrick:
Still no explanation for "polar"???
***
> >
> > > >root-aorist for 'drank'.
> > >
> > > So the same form means both 'took a sip' and 'drank'. What does it
> > > mean for 'durative' vs 'punctual' as referring to >objective<
> > > extent of time?
> >
> > ***
> > Patrick:
> >
> > See above. Probably 'take/took a sip' is legitimate, even without some
> > further marker to indicate 'diminutive' or 'partitive'.
> >
> > Let us first consider that even 'taking a sip' involves a quantity,
> though
> > short, of time.
> >
> > All action is fundamentally 'durative'.
> >
> > 'Punctual' is really not opposed per se to 'durative' but merely
> abstracts
> > from a duration a smaller duration, imagined as a point. Not 'black'
> and
> > 'white' but 'black' and 'gray'.
>
> Well, does 'smaller duration, imagined as a point' have a limit?
> What about 'walked for the whole day'? Is it durative or can it
> subjectively imagined to be 'punctual'? [The point is that the
> latter is what is seen in all known languages that have a
> perfective vs imperfective distinction. PIE is alledged to
> be uniquely different.]
***
Patrick:
I do not know how to interpret your first question.
I am not qualified to speak to whether time is infinitely or finitely
divisible.
'walked for the whole day' is, IMHO, indubitably durative. I cannot imagine
it being imagined as punctual.
If one looks at Russian (and, I presume, the other Slavic languages), one
realizes that the use of perfective and imperfective does not always seem
logical.
I am not sure where you heard this allegation. As far as I know, PIE is
_not_ uniquely different in any major way but the very odd Ablaut vowel (*e,
*o, *Ø).
***
***