Re: [tied] Fw: Subjunctive

----- Original Message -----

From: Piotr Gasiorowski

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Saturday, December 30, 2006 3:19 PM

Subject: Re: [tied] Fw: Subjunctive

On 2006-12-30 20:29, Patrick Ryan wrote:

> ***
> If I understand correctly, there are three indicative aspectual forms
> from which subjunctive forms might be derived:
>
> 1) injunctive (really punctual): *bhert

Both perfective ("aorist") and imperfective ("present") roots formed
injunctives. Injunctives are finite verb forms with "secondary" endings
but no augment, i.e. with neither present-tense nor preterite markers.

***

Are you asserting that the aorist is the PIE expression of the perfective aspect?

And that the present expresses the imperfective aspect?

If so, I find that completely unjustified!

***

 

> 2) present (really durative): *bheret(i)
>
> 3) perfect (really stative): *bhor(H)e

Or rather *bHe-bHor-e.

***

Why correct me? There are unreduplicated perfects which, it may be assumed, preceded reduplicated perfects.

***
> The earliest significance of the subjunctive mood is obligative
> ('should') or necessitative ('must').

I don't know about "the earliest", but in PIE the subjunctive is the
"modus irrealis", expressing hypothetical or not-yet-true (but possibly
imminent) actions and events, rather than what the speaker thinks ought
to or must happen. The mood that expresses the speaker's subjective
wishes and hopes is the optative (with the *-jéh1-/*-ih1- extension of
the stem and primary endings). In many daughter branches (including
Germanic) the functions of the optative and the subjunctive fell
together, but originally the two moods were distinct. As I have said
before, the subjunctive was also used in prohibitions (with *méh1), and
so tended to encroach on the turf of the imperative, but that too is a
secondary development.

<snip> 

Piotr

***
Some very fine linguists have had different ideas regarding the meaning of the subjunctive.

What leads you to believe they were wrong?

***