The Latin Imperfect and V-Perfect

The Latin Imperfect and V-Perfect: A Paradigm Split.
Miles Beckwith, Iona College
Innovated morphological categories arise in various ways. Two common sources are
a) PERIPHRASIS, where a new form is created through the univerbation of an earlier periphrasitic formation (cf., e.g., the formation of the new future tense in Romance, cantāre habet
> Spanish cantará), and b) REANALYSIS, where a formation spreads from a small number of
forms to become a morphological marker (cf. e.g., the Greek kappic-perfect where the -kspread from a core of only three aoristic forms [Rix 1976: 222-2]).
For both the Latin imperfect and v-perfect both periphrastic and reanalytical solutions
have been proposed (cf., e.g., Leumann 1977: 577-578 and 596-597 respectively). At this
point in time, the communis opinio seems to be settling on the idea that both the Latin
imperfect and v-perfect have periphrastic origins (cf. Rix 1992 [= 2001: 209-228] for the
perfect; Gippert 1999 for the imperfect); however, these analyses are unlikely to be correct.
Rix, despite his belief in a periphrastic origin for the v-perfect, was an adamant supporter of a
reanalytical analysis for the Latin imperfect. Rix traces the imperfect in -bā- < *-fā- [-βā-] to
pluperfect forms of the verb *bhw(e)h2-. Compare the singular of the perfect and pluperfect
paradigms of this verb in Italic (after Rix 1983 [= 2001: 136-152], 2003a, & 2003b).
Perfect
1s
*fufuwa
1s
*fufām
2s
*fufūsta
2s
*fufās
3s
*fufuwe
3s
*fufāt
Pluperfect
The existence of the perfect paradigm is confirmed by the Pre-Samnite fufuWod [fuβuwond],
clearly a thematization of an older plural *fufuwēr (vel sim.) while for the pluperfect, Rix
assumes this formation was reanalyzed as an imperfect (‘had become’ → ‘was’) and is
directly attested in Oscan fufans ‘were’.
Rix himself was primarily interested in the pluperfect forms, but it is reasonable to
assume that dereduplicated forms of the perfect above gave rise to Latin fuī. In contrast, the
imperfect forms were sufficiently isolated both formally with their ā-vocalism and
Beckwith
2
functionally with the newer imperfect value to resist dereduplication. Hence, after these
changes (and with the addition of the final -i), we arrive at the following Pre-Latin paradigms.
Perfect
1s
*fuwai
1s
*fufām
2s
*fūstai
2s
*fufās
3s
*fuwei
3s
*fufāt
Imperfect
Compare Meiser 2003: 42 & 221 who gives essentially the same paradigms as above
excepting the length of the root vowel in *fuwai, but despite the sporadic attestation of the
long vowel form fūit (etc.) in Plautus, there are a number of reasons to assume the short vowel,
at least in some forms, is older (cf. Rix 1992: 222 [= 2001: 210]; Pisani 1978: 179). If these
analyses are correct, Latin speakers would here have a root *fu- with the endings *-wai etc. in
the perfect, and *-fām etc. in the imperfect. From these forms the morphological markers -vand -bā- were ultimately abstracted.
This talk will show that both the Latin imperfect and v-perfect descend from this
paradigm split. The talk will further show that arguments in favor of periphrastic analyses of
the imperfect and v-perfect are unnecessary, functionally problematic, and chronologically
awkward if not impossible. Finally, the talk will investigate cross-linguistic evidence
showing that a small number of forms can serve as the pivot for the creation of newer
morphology. Ultimately there is nothing odd in this; it is simply an extension of the basic
principle that regular morphology grows at the expense of irregular morphology. In addition
to the Greek kappic-perfect, other examples of this phenomenon include the Greek passive
aorist in -yh-, perhaps abstracted from the single root *stay- (as per Ruijgh 2004: 62), the
Indic -es-precatives derived from a single form khyesam (as per Cowgill 1969 = 2006: 93-98
[with numerous complications]) or the regularization of the ablaut of the Germanic strong
verb from the single root *h1ed- (as per Ringe 2006: 185-6).
Beckwith
3
REFERENCES
Gippert, J. (1999): Das lateinische Imperfekt in sprachvergleichender Hinsicht, Studia Celtica
et Indogermanica: Festschrift für Wolfgang Meid / herausgegeben von Peter Anreiter und
Erzsébet Jerem, Budapest, pp. 125-137.
Cowgill, W. (1969): On the origin of the Indic es-precative, MSS 23, pp. 27-38
–– (2006): The Collected Writings of Warren Cowgill, Ann Arbor.
Leumann, M. (1977): Lateinische Laut- und Formenlehre, München.
Meiser, G. (2003): Veni Vidi Vici: Die Vorgeschichte des lateinischen Perfektsystem,
München.
Pisani, V. (1978): Lateinisch fūī, fūīmus und ein idg. Perfekt auf -u̯-, ZVS 92, pp. 179-183.
Ringe, D. (2006): From Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic (A Linguistic History of
English, v. 1), Oxford.
Rix, H. (1976): Historische Grammatik des Griechischen: Laut- u. Formenlehre, Darmstadt.
–– (1983): Umbro e proto-osco-umbro, Le lingue indoeuropee di frammentaria attestazione,
Pisa, pp. 91-107.
–– (1992): Zur Entstehung des lateinischen Perfektsparadigmas, Latein und Indogermanisch:
Akten des Kolloquiums der Indogermanischen Gesellschaft... 1986, hrsg. von O.
Panagl u. T. Krisch, Innsbruck, pp. 221-240.
–– (2001): Kleine Schriften: Festgabe für Helmut Rix zum 75. Geburtstag, hrsg. von G.
Meiser, Bremen.
–– (2003a): The Latin Imperfect in -bā-, the Proto-Indo-European Root *bhu̯eh2- and Full
Grade I Forms from Seṭ-Roots with Full Grade II, Language in time and space: a
Festschrift for Werner Winter on the occasion of his 80th birthday, Berlin, pp. 363384.
–– (2003b): Towards a Reconstruction of Proto-Italic: the Verbal System, Proceedings of the
Fourteenth Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference, Washington, pp. 1-24.
Ruijgh, C. J. (2004): The PIE Verbal Suffix *-eh1-, Indo-European Perspectives: Studies in
Honor of Anna Morpurgo Davies, ed. by J. H. W. Penny, Oxford, pp. 48-64.