On 2006-12-31 06:14, Patrick Ryan wrote:
> First, let me ask you a question.
>
> If I say:
>
> 'He is eating up the bread.'
>
> Is that perfective?
First, note that this question is about Modern English, a language in
which aspect is not a lexically specified property of verb stems. In
English, aspect (progressive, perfect or a combination of both) is
expressed analytically with the help of auxiliary verbs. If not
expressed grammatically (as in the "simple tenses"), the aspect of most
verbs is ambiguous. "Is eating up" is formally progressive (i.e.
imperfective), whatever the inherent semantics of "eat up", which
normally tends to refer to punctual actions ("And then the wolf ate up
Little Red Ridding Hood"). Actually, "He is eating up the bread" is
shorthand for something like "He's eating the bread and he's going (or:
as if he were going) to eat it all up". This is precisely what the
subjunctive of aorist verbs could express in PIE.
> Unquestionably, the reduplicated perfect supplanted the
> unreduplicated perfect but this happened to most verbs so any that
> escaped the process in any given branch is fortuitous and unpredictable.
Why "unquestionably"?
> I consider W. P. Lehmann a fine linguist. This was his view
> (_Proto-Indo-European Synatx_).
>
> And, I believe you know, we have been talking about PIE.
>
> Obligative and necessitative are not indicative statements of fact.
> They are both, in a sense, irrealis. That is, of course, why the
> subjunctive could later migrate to non-second person imperatives and
> optatives.
See Jens's comment:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/37904
The subjunctive is also used in making command-like first-person
proposals ("Let's go", "Let me guess"), in asking for advice ("What
shall I do?"), and, very importantly, is simply used as a sort of future
tense. I believe Lehmann's emphasis on the "obligative/necessitative"
meaning (which look to me like an elaboration of Delbrück's old
argument) results from his leaning too exclusively on a somewhat
tendentious interpretation of the Vedic data. The subjunctive may
actually be used with "prospective" (you will/would) as well as
"voluntative" (you shall/should) meanings, expressing the expected (but
unreal or not-yet-real) consequences of a given situation.
Piotr