Augment (was Re: German ge- ptcpl cognates?)

[Miguel Carrasquer Vidal]

"Vidhyanath Rao" <rao.3 at osu.edu> wrote:

>From: "Miguel Carrasquer Vidal" <mcv at wxs.nl>
>> Still, the unmarked form is a simple past, while the marked forms
>> are the imperfective ("durative", "present-future") with
>> geminated C2, and the perfect (CtCC [iptaras], with infix -t-).
>> Such a system is potentially very close to one with unmarked past
>> vs. marked present (all it takes is the loss of the perfect).

>Is it s a simple past or narrative past? [zero forms do survive as
>subsequent forms even when they have been ousted from isolated
>sentences, conversation etc.]

I don't know much about Akkadian syntax, but what I gather is:

The preterite (iprus) is the unmarked narrative past.

The perfect (iptaras) is less frequent.  According to Lipin'ski
it denotes "that a state is produced in someone or in something,
whether it be caused by another or by himself/itself".  The -t-
infix in other Semitic languages (as well as in Akkadian modal
forms) denotes a reflexive (Ugaritic yr-t-HS "he washed himself",
preterite with t-infix).

I don't know to what extent the imperfective (iparras,
"present/future") was used in past tense contexts.  Judging by
its traditional name, not often.

There is also the Akkadian stative (paris), which is is the
normal perfective / past tense in other Semitic languages (having
ousted the preterite), but which in Akkadian is a true stative,
i.e. a verbal adjective (paris "he is separate"(?)).

Campbell ("Compendium of the World's Languages") says:
"Instead of the typical Semitic division into perfective and
imperfective aspects, Akkadian has an idiosyncratic quadruple
segmentation which corresponds broadly to a present/
preterite/perfect system, with the fourth memeber acting as a
kind of stative".

Diakonov (in EB), contrary to Lipin'ski, seems to say that the
preterite was in origin a perfective (opposed to the iparras
imperfective).  "Later a new "perfect" with an infixed -ta- in
the stem developed".

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