[tied] Re: PIE Punctual and Durative

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:

>
> On 2006-12-29 12:50, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> > Why would anyone want to build a new present based on a future
> > of the past? Besides there's the chicken-and-egg question of
> > thematic stem and subjunctive aorist.
> > Could you spell out in more detail how you think that would have
> > happened?
>
> The aorist is not "the past".

A sentence with a verb in the aorist refers to an event in the past.

> It's an aspect rather than a tense.

No, perfective is an aspect rather than a tense. There is no aorist
preterite, aorist present nor aorist future. The aorist is a punctual
past.

> The injunctive form of the aorist is tenseless, and the subjunctive
> often functions as the future.

> There is no chicken-or-egg problem, since thematic presents in
> *-éje-, *-jé- and *-sk^é- (perhaps all of them ultimately with the
> same suffix *-jé-) existed independently of the simple thematics.
> They all occur in Anatolian, where the simple thematic type is not
> attested at all.

I proposed that thematic verbs were created as the result of
regularizing stress within the verb paradigm. If the suffixes you
mention carried stress, they would have produced a similar result:
a paradigm with fixed stress. Therefore the above argument doesn't
invalidate what I proposed.

> There is some metrical evidence from the RV suggesting (though not >

conclusively proving) that the subjunctive suffix was -*h1e- rather
than *-e-. If so, "simple thematic" looks like a misnomer.

>
> The aorist could not be converted into a present by simply giving
> it a primary ending,

You mean it wasn't.

> just like a perfective verb cannot form a present tense in Russian.

But an aorist could form a present in PIE?

> In PIE, the present of an inherently aorist root had to be derived
> by such means as suffixation, infixation or reduplication. The
> interpretation of some aorist subjunctives as "present continuous"
> rather than "close future" forms offered an easy way of forming new
> presents in a highly transparent way (guaranteed by the full
> vocalism of the root).

That easy way is purely formal. Semantically it isn't easy at all.

> Hence numerous new verbs like PGmc. *kWem-a-/*kWim-i- < pre-Gmc.
> *gWém-e/o- replacing less transparent types such as *gWm.-jé/ó-
> or *gWm.-sk^é/o-, derived from the aorist *gWém-t, *gWm-ént (subj.
> *gWém-e/o-). But e.g. Av. jamaiti: and PToch. *s'&m'&- (Toch.B s'ämt
> 'you will come') are still aorist subjunctives, not present
> indicatives.

On the other hand I must admit that Greek thematic subjunctives look
like they got a double whammy of something (*-e-e-, *-o-o-).


Torsten