Momentary-Durative

[petegray]

Thank you for your patience, Jens.    I'm replying to you points in reverse
order - it seems better that way, since it puts the more important things
first.

You said:

> ... an increasingly well-established structure, with archaisms and
> productive patterns, .... I react in
> defense of the field when I see somebody turning the clock back ...

Rightly so.   I am not a linguistic Luddite.  But I am an enquirer, and I
believe I am right to ask for evidence rather than assertion.    You have
insisted several times that nasal presents and root aorists go together.
Apart from mentioning Strunk, you have not given evidence.  I don't dispute
that the evidence is there - and perhaps it's so well known that you haven't
felt it necessary to give any - but I'd like to see it, or a reference to
Strunk so that I can chase it down for myself.   You do allow that PIE can
have variant presents, so that seems to run against your main claim.

Your examples of reduplicated presents developing into nasal presents is a
well chosen answer to my point - thank you.

Thank you, too, for the references to Rix, and Renou.   I was not aware of
either.

You said:

> The impression that [in the IE verbal stem] ...
> no common system is
> recoverable is not compatible with current knowledge

There is little real "Current knowledge" with PIE.   It is in many cases
really rather "current opinion which someone happens to accept".   So how
much support is there for Strunk?  How much debate is there?   I read as
widely as I can in PIE, and have not met a mention of him - but I'm sure the
failing is mine.   In any case, I do not dispute that patterns are
perceivable.   I do question, however, how much weight we should give these
patterns, and in particular whether we over-prioritise the patterns based on
Greek & Indo-Aryan.   It has been shown again and again since the 70's that
the "south-eastern" group of Greek, I-A, and Armenian is highly innovative.

I said:

>> your argument (that a root aorist implies a nasal present) is
>> really rather weak.

Here I must apologise - as you rightly point out, I had your argument back
to front.

You said:

> No, thematic presents and root-presents typically take the s-aorist (or
> suppletion).

Root presents are rare outside I-I, and in Sanskrit -s- aorists do not seem
to be typical for root presents, since the both sigmatic and asigmatic
aorists occur.   E.g. am has asigmatic, i:d has both, i:r shows both, u
shows none, U:h asigmatic, and so on.   Where, again, is your evidence that
makes it "typical" for a root present to take an -s- aorist?
    Thematic presents appear to be a later formation, in any case, and you
seem to suggest an origin for them in root aorist subjunctives.

Incidentally, I read today in JIES vol12, 1984, the argument that even
the -s- aorists are an innovation within Greek, I-A and closely related
groups.   The article alleged that evidence outside this area is weak, and
tried to dispose of Latin -s- perfects by suggesting they were either
limited to verbs ending in a velar, or they were back formations from the
supine.
    Don't hear me supporting this idea.  I mention it because it raises the
kind of question I want to ask about Strunk.   Here an article attacks
something that is well established for PIE.   So I cannot believe that there
is no argument at all about Strunk's ideas, or that they are "current
knowledge".

Now I hate to be a pain, Jens, and I freely acknowledge the limitation of my
understanding.   But I hope the above shows the kind of questions I have to
grapple with before I can lie down and accept what you say.

Peter