Latin perfects and Fluent Etruscan in 30 days!

[Adolfo Zavaroni]

Rick Mc Callister wrote

>         Adolfo Zavaroni's version of Etruscan in I documenti etruschi
> suggests links to Germanic --but (as I remember) he sees Etruscan as an IE
> language
>         He uses linguistic comparison in a way that the Bonfantes rail
> against BUT his idea that Etruscan <z> /ts/ & <s'> correspond to IE /st/ is
> interesting
>         I don't know how Zavaroni situates Etruscan in IE...

Peter Gray sic ait:

> I know no Etruscan.  Can anyone confirm Paolo Agostini's statement that
> Etruscan had a -v- perfective?

I cannot say that Etruscan *is* an IE language;
I think that most of the attested lexicon is IE,
probably because of borrowings from IE (Italic, ProtoCeltic;
ProtoGermanish especially through Raetia and Alpine zones;
some Greek technical names) to Etruscan and from Etruscan to some IE
languages (Latin, Osko-Umbrian). Etruscan had strong contacts with close
peoples for 700-800 years at least.
Some morphological aspects (declension, derivatives) seem to be IE.
Certainly the verbal morphology, extremely semplified (no personal
conjugation; only present and past tense: but we know only texts
containing short sentences) is very different from Latin, Greek, Old
Indian verbal systems.

Like Paolo Agostini, I too think that Etruscan
had perfective forms in -v-
(cf. tenve = Lat. tenuit, zilakhnve = '(he) ruled',
heramve 'profatus est', eisnev < eisneve '(he) was sacerdos' etc.).
The oldest of these forms (heramve) goes back to the VI B.C.,
while the past tense (also used as past participle) in -ke, -khe is
attested already in the first inscriptions of the VII-VIII century B.C.
 It could not be excluded that -ve- (later -v) is due to Italic
contacts.

Adolfo Zavaroni