Re: Perfect tense and aspect
DWILKINS@ucrac1.ucr.edu
Thu, 5 Sep 1996 10:55:09 -0700 (PDT)
Carl asked some interesting questions. I did a search of the DCB database
(L'Annee Philologizue vol. 47-58) and could only find works on the influence
of Greek on Latin. I am particularly interested in the KA endings on the -MI
verbs (since they are the oldest verbs), and can't help wondering if the
perfect came first, the aorist being a later development. Maybe someone who
has studied this recently (Carl, can you elaborate) can bring us up to date
on scholarship. In Hebrew (a non-IE language, granted) we only have the per-
fect and imperfect, and I suspect that is basically true for English as well,
mutatis mutandis.
Don Wilkins
UC Riverside