Latin perfects

[Eduard Selleslagh]

-----Original Message-----
From: Anthony Appleyard <Anthony.Appleyard at umist.ac.uk>
Date: Saturday, May 22, 1999 2:14 PM

[long snip]

>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.

[Ed Selleslagh]

Note that a similar process is taking place in popular southern Spanish:
(yo) planto - (yo) planté
(nosotros) plantamos - (nosotros) plantamos, so my gardener says '(nosotros)
plantemos'!  The Analogy Bulldozer is rolling again.  I predict this is
going to be the norm a sufficient number of years from now, whatever the
opinion of the Real Academia.

BTW, I would be interested to learn more about the process that led to the
infinitive-based synthetic future in many Romance languages.  The story of
the widespread will/shall/must based future is pretty clear, even though the
details may be rather complicated in some cases, like in modern Greek
(tha+aorist root+present ending, tha < thelo:, 'volo').

Ed.