imperfect

[Miguel Carrasquer Vidal]

I wrote:

>If what you're saying is that a Vedic/Skt. "imperfect" like
><avahat> "he carried", without specific imperfective markers,
>goes back to a simple past tense as in Hittite or indeed Germanic
>[except for the augment, of course], I fully agree.  But the
>question is, what happened to the meaning of that form when
>s-aorists like <ava:ks.i:t> arose?  Did it become an
>imperfective/habitual past in pre-Vedic (e.g. proto-Indo-Iranian)
>like the Greek imperfect, or did it remain a simple aspectless
>narrative past?  And if the latter, what about marked
>"imperfects" like <agacchat>?

I forgot to add: "assuming the Sanskrit verbal forms I quote
above are found in the RV (I'm not sure)".

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam