The Neolithic Hypothesis (Germanic)

[petegray]

Steve said:>
>1) no -s or *-s is a 3rd.p.sg. personal marker: Hittite, Tocharian, Germanic.
>3) *-(i)sk-: Armenian.
>4) s-preterite: Italic, Celtic, Albanian.
>5) s-aorist: Greek, Indo-Iranian, Slavic(-Baltic).>>

Firstly, did a number 2 get omitted?  I'd be interested.

Secondly, if the Italic form is not classed with the Greek, then the
Sanskrit cannot be either.  Italic, Greek and Sanskrit share the formation,
but the meaning is differently handled in all three languages.  The Sanskrit
aorist is not the Greek aorist - it has, if anything, a perfective meaning.

Greek:
 Aorist: secondary endings:  "timeless" or, with augment, narrative past.
 Perfect:  perfect endings:   state resulting from previous action

Sanskrit:
 Aorist:  secondary endings:  narrative past, occasionally state resulting
from past action.
 Perfect:  perfect endings:  narrative past (often parallel to aorist or
imperfect, and not distinguishable from them)

Latin:
  Endings:
    Aorist endings survive in 3 sing, and possibly 1 plural;
    Perfect ending survives in 1 sing and possibly 1 plural;
    Others are unclear:  2 sing and plural is possibly a blend of aorist and
perfect endings, and 3 plural shows an adaptation of the perfect in -r;

 Stem Formation:
    All but one of the IE forms can be attested, often on the same root:
eg, from pango:
 (i) pepigi (zero grade reduplication, i.e. either generalised from the
plural or an aorist form, as also found - on different roots - in Greek and
Sanskrit);
 (ii) panxi  (early form:  s-aorist)
 (iii) pe:gi (early form - long vowel aorist)
      The one form that cannot be found in Latin is the reduplication-plus-o
grade which is the commonest form in Greek and Sanskrit.   All Latin
reduplications have zero grade, and all o grade forms lack reduplication.

Meaning:
  narrative past or near past (like English "I have done")
  It is often said that it also had the same meaning as the Greek
resultative perfect, but this develops only after contact with, and profound
influence by, Greek.  Cicero's "vixerunt" (literally "they have lived")
meaning "they are dead" would be a true Greek perfect - but this usage is
perhaps not native to Latin.

So Latin and Sanskrit both fail to distinguish aorist from perfect as Greek
does, although their "failure" takes different forms.

Peter