Re: PIE meaning of the Germanic dental preterit

On Sat, 01 Mar 2008 22:42:15 +0100, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
<miguelc@...> wrote:

>An imperfect makes sense, given that PGmc. already had a
>"punctual past" in the form of the old perfect. If another
>past tense was to be created, chances are it would be an
>imperfect (as in Latin, Slavic, Armenian, etc.)
>Against an imperfect argues the fact that there is no
>overlap (and no difference in meaning) between strong and
>weak preterites in attested Gmc. Strong verbs of course
>don't have a ptc. in *-to- (they have it in *-eno-), but the
>question then is: what happened to the imperfect in *-ena
>ðeðe:?

I had rather hoped this would ring a bell in the head of one
of our Germanists. Nothing? Nowhere any, say, personally
inflected present participles?

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
miguelc@...