[tied] Re: Germanic preterite optative

The preterite may not be unmaked after all.

The present was narked in the endings. The preterite may have been
marked by independent adverbs as suggested before in this thread. In
that case the unmarked form may have been a tenseless form in IE.

In either case, later on such an adverb became a prefix marking
preterite, namely the so-called augment.

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "raonath" <raonath@...> wrote:
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Sean Whalen <stlatos@> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > --- raonath <raonath@> wrote:
> >
> > > Second, grammaticalization theory suggests that the past is
> > > never umarked (see Bybee et al, "The evolution of grammar").
> >
> > Many theories predict things that are false. Let's
> > imagine a language with the present marked with -i and
> > the past with -a; if later a>0 word-finally then the
> > past will look unmarked.
>
> I can imagine all sorts of things, but to falsify a theory, I need
> to give an actual counterexample.
>
> I would really love to see a real example:
> If we can find an actual human language where something like
> the suggested process occurred, that would be a real test of the
> theory: If that language added additional material (like for
example,
> a time denoting word/phrase to the start of each story) to the
> not explicitely marked form, that would be strong positive
> evidence. Otherwise, we have a counter-example. Either way, we
> would know something new. Otherwise, it is just an armchair
> exercise.
>
> Nath Rao
>