Re[2]: [tied] Fw: Subjunctive

At 11:26:59 AM on Sunday, December 31, 2006, Patrick Ryan
wrote:

[...]

> What I cannot believe you do not grasp is that perfective
> has to do with the goal of an activity not its duration;
> as long as the speaker has a logical goal in mind, the
> action can be punctual or durative:

*perfective* /p&'fektIv/ n. or adj. A superordinate
aspectual category involving a lack of explicit reference
to the internal temporal consistency of a situation, and
contrasting principally with *imperfective*.

*imperfective* /Imp&'fektIv/ n. or adj. A superordinate
aspectual category making reference to the internal
structure of the activity expressed by the verb, and
contrasting with the *perfective*. The imperfective may
be subdivided into various more specialized aspectual
distinctions, such as *habitual*, *progressive* and
*iterative*.

(From Larry Trask's _A Dictionary of Grammatical Terms in
Linguistics_.) Nothing about goals here.

> 'I am consuming the bread'; 'I consume the bread'; 'I
> shall consume the bread'

> are all perfective.

The first is not: it is progressive, and hence imperfective.
The second can be habitual (and so imperfective). Only the
last is clearly perfective.

> English frequently employs prepositions, just like the
> Slavic languages, to indicate aspect: 'eat up' is
> perfective, whether durative or punctual.

'The durative aspect is a subdivision of imperfective
aspect' (Trask s.v. <durative>).

[...]

>>> 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"?

> Because 1 comes before 2; simple before complex. It is the
> universe we live in. Sorry about that.

Language frequently develops in the other direction.

mobile vulgus > mobile > mob
bi: cause > because
amare habemus > aimerons
para + veredus > paraveredus > Pferd

And perhaps more directly apposite:

*bebu: > *beu: > bjó (3sing. past of ON <búa>)

[...]

Brian