----- Original Message -----From: tgpedersenSent: Thursday, December 21, 2006 11:39 AMSubject: [tied] Re: Ablaut, hi-conjugation, stress alternation, etc--- In cybalist@... s.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@ ...> wrote:
<snip>
Often presents are durative, preterites punctual. Does the fact that
the perfect doesn't have *e, thus no stress, come not from the fact
that it had a reduplication prefix, but that it had a reduplication
prefix *or* a preverb (eg. Latin) and that the reduplication prefix
was so to speak a phonological 'place-holder' for a preverb? That
would mean that preverbs made simple verbs punctual, ie. perfective,
as is the case in Slavic (and Latvian, preverb po-), so that that
Slavic specialty goes back to PIE (still, the perfective of c^itat
is proc^ital, not **c^ic^ital or the like).
***Last things first.
I am sure the excellent Slavicists on this list will be able to expand and amplify what I am about write.
It is absolutely wrong to say that "preverbs made simple verbs punctual". Preverbs provide a wide variety of derivational nuances, only one of which is perfectivity. Perfectivity has nothing intrinsically to do with punctuality.
English "he is drinking up the milk", for example, is perfective and durative.
Because of the terminology which has developed as grammarians refined their results, there is much confusion.
A typical example is the terminology of primary and secondary endings for PIE actional verbs. Since (almost) all agree that, e.g. -*ti is composed of -*t and -*i, it is perpetuating an idiocy to insist on calling -*ti primary. It is obvious that -*t should be characterized as primary, and the complex -*t-i- as secondary, since it had to have arisen after -*t. To plead that correcting the terminology would be confusing because of traditional usage is to abdicate any responsibility for progressive self-correction.
There appear to me to be clearly demonstrated by the inflections which we can reconstruct two basic forms of the PIE verb (as illustrated by the 3rd p. sing.):
*bher- (from *bhérV-), punctual; and
*bhere- (from *bher'V-), durative.
No ending produces a punctual or durative imperative: *bher- or *bhere.
To the punctual form, two sets of endings were added:
actional (transitive/intransitive): -*t
non-actional (stative): -*(?)e
With these endings, the punctual produces the injunctive: *bher-t; the second, the perfect: *bher-(?)e.
The durative produces the _basis_ for the present (*bhere-t-i) and imperfect (*?e-bhere-t-i): **bhere-t though it is not independently attested.
The non-present (past) is conveyed by the prefix *(?)e-, presumably 'then'.
The imperfect is seen above. Combined with *(?)e-, the punctual form produces the root aorist: *(?)e-bher-t.
Of course, over time, there has been much slippage from this simple, earliest scheme.
Patrick
***