--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "aquila_grande" <aquila_grande@...>
wrote:
>
> The oldest IE languag recorded, Hittite, had a tense system
> based on primary and secundary endings.
>
> This suggests that the IE indeed had a tense system, but this was
> based the opposition between primary and secondary endings, aws in
> Hittite.
I have two questions about this suggestion:
First, in Vedic, the 'injunctive' (secondary ending, but without
augment) functions as a tenseless form. How did the past tense form
become tenseless? Are there parallels that do not involve
reconstructed languages?
Second, grammaticalization theory suggests that the past is
never umarked (see Bybee et al, "The evolution of grammar"). The most
we see in contemporary languages is for narratives to proceed using
zero forms, with the opening setting the scene and time by some
other means. This makes Hittie truely odd. What is going on? [There
have been suggestions that in Hittite, paricles had some
aspectual function. This does not seem to be universally accepted;
however, there seems to be some statistical difference in such
usage in opening sentences from other sentences. There is
something going on here, but I don't know if anyone has looked at
it.]
Nath Rao