Momentary-Durative

[Patrick C. Ryan]

[ moderator re-formatted ]

Dear Nath and IEists:

 ----- Original Message -----
From: Vidhyanath Rao <vidynath at math.ohio-state.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, June 08, 1999 8:33 AM

[ moderator snip ]

> I don't know if Leo made this point. If CCV- was the original ``perfective'',
> why is the thematic aorist so hard to reconstruct for PIE?  *(e)videt and
> (e)bhuget and perhaps (e)rudhet but no others. In Indic we can see root
> aorists give rise to thematic ones by thematization (adars'ma gives way to
> adrs'a:ma, drs'ema etc). Rix sees a similar thing happening in Greek.

Lehmann does not consider C'CV per se perfective: he contrasts an aorist
vida{'}t as +perfective, + momentary, and the perfect ve{'}da as
+perfective, -momentary.

You may or may not agree.

But to attempt to address the idea behind your question if I understand it,
the relative rarity of thematic aorists may be substantially attributable to
the fact that there were two other competing aorists (or equivalents): the
root aorists and s-aorists.

Now, let me ask you a question in return.

Would you agree that there was some difference in meaning between the
athematic and thematic aorists? And what might that difference (if any) have
been?

Pat

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