Momentary-Durative

[petegray]

I (Peter) wrote >

>> ... at first a tenseless verb was used with endings -m, -s, -t
>> and so on.

Jens said:

> ... what does "at first" mean here?

I meant only "prior to the time when tense was marked morphologically."   If
you wish to take issue with me, you must also take issue with Friedrich
Mueller (1857), Thurneysen (1885), the detailed proof by Kiparsky in
Watkins' *verb* 45;  Bruggman, Kieckers, Burrow, Martinet, Kurylowicz,
Erhart, Wright, Brandenstein, Szemerenyi, Beekes, Baldi, and others.  (I
hide behind their authority because I generally respect your contributions,
Jens!).   There are other voices, speaking against this view, but they are
few: Herbig (1896), Hattori (1970), Manczak (1980).    Your posting also
recognised the existence of these tenseless forms in -m -s and so on.

Jens said:

>  If the tense markers such as the primary *-i
> and the augment *e- were once independent words, how can we know they are
> younger than the person markers?

The formation is younger, not necessarily the elements.

(I said):

>> thematic -
>> or especially sigmatic - aorists may be later than athematic and asigmatic.

Jens replied:

> Thematic yes, ... But
> there is no indication that the sigmatic aorist is an innovation;

Perhaps I misunderstand you.   It seems to me that a formation <root> +
<suffix> + <ending> is necessarily derivative, and that the primary form is
<root> + < ending>.

Jens went on:

> It must
> once have had a special function, and I suppose it was inchoative (the
> aorist corresponding to the sk^-presents).

The -sk^- presents are not normally incohative in IE, except in Latin.   We
should not read back into PIE the situation we find in the languages with
which we are most familiar.   Hittite uses -sk- for an iterative/durative;
Tocharian for a causative.   Possibly the iterative /durative is more
original, as there are traces of it in Homer as well as Tocharian.

Likewise your connection of -s- aorists with -sk^- presents is not regular
anywhere.  Many (if not most?) in Latin have -v- perfects, suggesting the
root was a vowel or a laryngeal (e.g. creH-sco, gnoH-sco).  Some have
reduplicated forms (disco didici).  LIkewise, aorists in other IE langs do
not show the connection you suggest.

Then I talked of:

> a tense-based system gets going.

Jens said

> Why could that need not have been there from the start?

It seems that it was not - as in many other languages where there was no
tense system at the time of European contact - e.g. Maori.

Your comments on Sanskrit tud'ati I will have to reply to later

Best wishes
Peter