Re: PIE meaning of the Germanic dental preterit

On 2008-03-03 23:28, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote:

>
>
> On Sat, 01 Mar 2008 22:42:15 +0100, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
> <miguelc@... <mailto:miguelc%40orange.nl>> 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?

I'm not aware of any (before the development of periphrastic progressive
tenses). The division of labour between "weak" *-ða- and "strong" *-ana-
is puzzling, though there are sporadic exceptions like *wr.g^-jé/ó-,
which developed into a weak verb with the past part. *wurxta- <
*wr.g^-to- and a dental preterite, though it "ought to" have become
strong (hypothetical OE +wearc/+wurcon/+worcen). But the question why
strong verbs did not form a periphrastic preterite is easy to answer:
primary verbs had perfect forms; derived verbs had none. When the
imperfect was eliminated from the system (leaving *dHi-dHeh1-t as the
only surviving form), derived verbs had no choice: they had to get
themselves a new preterite. Also "preterite presents" had to do that, as
their original perfect failed to acquire a past-tense interpretation.

Piotr

Piotr