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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;mso-fareast-language:EN-US">I think the question will be quite difficult to answer, for several reasons. One is that it will be hard to find a sufficient number
of reasonably independent cases. The developments in European languages that you are referring to are too close to each other in time and space to be treated as separate from each other. You also need to have consistent criteria for the determining when a
category comes into being and when it disappears, and also for choosing the set of categories you are generalizing over. That said, I think that 200-300 years is too low at least for perfects. For instance, all Scandinavian languages have perfects that are
alive and well and show no strong tendencies to develop into anything else, and they have histories that go back a millennium at least. Your proposed figure seems to imply that perfects would be doomed to disappear almost as soon as they have shown up. I do
not think there is evidence for such “programmed death”. This is not to deny that perfects are considerably more unstable than categories like the (Simple) Past /Preterits in Germanic or Slavic.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;mso-fareast-language:EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Östen Dahl<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Från:</span></b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"> Lingtyp [mailto:lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org]
<b>För </b>Sergey Lyosov<br>
<b>Skickat:</b> den 13 april 2016 19:59<br>
<b>Till:</b> Hartmut Haberland <hartmut@ruc.dk><br>
<b>Kopia:</b> lingtyp <lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org>; goetzsche@hum.aau.dk<br>
<b>Ämne:</b> Re: [Lingtyp] lifespan of Perfect<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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Thank you! Sure. But this is einzelsprachlich.<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span lang="RU">Среда, 13 апреля 2016, 18:04 +03:00 от
</span>Hartmut Haberland<span lang="RU"> <</span><a href="mailto:hartmut@ruc.dk">hartmut<span lang="RU">@</span>ruc<span lang="RU">.</span>dk</a><span lang="RU">>:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">A classic must be Erika Mihevc, La disparition du parfait dans le grec de la basse époque; Ljubljana: Razprave SAZU, razred za filol. in lit. vede V, 1959, 93–154.<br>
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Hartmut Haberland<o:p></o:p></p>
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Den 13/04/2016 kl. 16.01 skrev Sergey Lyosov <<a href="file://e.mail.ru/compose/%3fmailto=mailto%253asergelyosov@inbox.ru" target="_blank">sergelyosov@inbox.ru</a>>:<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p><span lang="EN-US">Dear colleagues, </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">by the “lifespan” of an “unstable” morphosyntactic category, I mean the time during which it is opposed to its nearest semantic partners. A good example is the interaction between the semantic Perfect and the semantic Preterit in a language.
Say, in a certain variety of spoken German, “Ich habe gesprochen” and “Ich sprach” used to be opposed for some time, and then, in the course of the Präteritumschwund, “Ich sprach” fell out of oral usage, and the erstwhile Perfect “Ich habe gesprochen” became
a new Preterit. The same happened in various dialects of Spanish and Italian, with different outcomes, i.e., sometimes it was the new (analytical) form that has fallen in disuse.
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">The question is: what is known, typologically, about a medium/average lifetime of these “fragile” (because of their complex semantic organization) semantic categories?</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">Best,</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">Sergey</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span lang="RU">Среда, 13 апреля 2016, 8:23 +03:00 от
</span>Eitan Grossman<span lang="RU"> <</span><a href="mailto:eitan.grossman@mail.huji.ac.il">eitan<span lang="RU">.</span>grossman<span lang="RU">@</span>mail<span lang="RU">.</span>huji<span lang="RU">.</span>ac<span lang="RU">.</span>il</a><span lang="RU">>:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Hi Sergey, <o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Could you explain a bit what you mean by 'lifespan'? <o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Eitan<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><br clear="all">
<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Eitan Grossman <o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Lecturer, Department of Linguistics/School of Language Sciences<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Hebrew University of Jerusalem<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Tel: +972 2 588 3809<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Fax: +972 2 588 1224<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">On Tue, Apr 12, 2016 at 6:12 PM, Sergey Lyosov <<a href="file://e.mail.ru/compose/%3fmailto=mailto%253asergelyosov@inbox.ru" target="_blank">sergelyosov@inbox.ru</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p>Dear colleagues,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>what do we know about the life-time of “unstable” verbal categories, such as Perfect or Resultative? My studies of the history of the verb in Semitic languages make me suggest that this lifespan may amount to some 200-300 years or so. Are there studies
of the problem based on a representative sample of languages?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p> Best,<br>
<br>
Sergey<o:p></o:p></p>
<p> <o:p></o:p></p>
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<a href="http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp" target="_blank">http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp</a><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">_______________________________________________<br>
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