Latin perfects

[Anthony Appleyard]

Peter <petegray at btinternet.com> wrote:- (Subject: Re: Latin perfects):-

> Thanks, Wilmer, for the interesting questions on the Latin perfect, some of
> which have answers, some of which don't, and some of which are disputed.

> > - a 'weak' perfect obtained in the most verbs using -vi/-ui ...

I had an idea that Latin perfects with a {v} inserted may have come by
contraction of a periphrastic perfect using the Latin perfect active
participle ((e.g. *ama:vos- = "having loved") which vanished unrecorded
before written times (unless `mortuus' = "dead" is a thematized relic
survivor form)) with {sum} (plus the persistent bulldozer of Analogical
Levelling destroying evidence by making endings like in other tenses):
e.g. *ama:vo:s estes > ama:vistis "you (pl) have loved". That would
explain why (as far as I know) there are no Latin perfect passive forms
like **ama:vitur = "he has been loved", as prehistoric Latin *{ama:vo:s
estur} would not be perfect passive, if it meant anything at all. It
might also mean that Latin perfects with the {v} missing (e.g. French
{vous donna^tes} < Latin {vos dona(vi)stis) are not contracted but
original, being derived from true IE perfects; the process that happened
next was often perhaps the reverse, with much analogical insertion of
-vi- into early Latin perfects which had fallen identical with presents
by loss of reduplication.