Tense and Aspect in Indo-European Languages: Theory, Typology, Diachrony (Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science, Series IV: Current Issues in Linguistic Theory)

This monograph presents a general picture of the evolution of IE verbal systems within a coherent cognitive framework. The work encompasses all the language families of the IE phylum, from prehistory to present day languages. Inspired by the ideas of Roman Jakobson and Gustave Guillaume the authors relate tense and aspect to underlying cognitive processes, and show that verbal systems have a staged development of time representations (chronogenesis). They view linguistic change as systemic and trace the evolution of the earliest tense systems by (a) aspectual split and (b) aspectual merger from the original aspectual contrasts of PIE, the evidence for such systemic change showing clearly in the paradigmatic morphology of the daughter languages. The nineteen chapters cover first the ancient documentation, then those families whose historical data are from a more recent date. The last chapters deal with the systemic evolution of languages that are descended from ancient forbears such as Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin, and are completed by a chapter on the practical and theoretical conclusions of the work. Ch. 1. Tense And Aspect: Description And Theory / John Hewson -- Sect. A. Languages With The Original Three-aspect System: Present -- Aorist -- Perfect. Ch. 2. The Verbal System Of Ancient Greek / John Hewson. Ch. 3. The Verbal System Of Vedic And Classical Sanskrit / Vit Bubenik -- Sect. B. Languages With The Original Present -- Aorist System And Innovative Perfect. Ch. 4. The Verbal System Of Classical Armenian / Vit Bubenik. Ch. 5. The Verbal System Of Old Church Slavic / Vit Bubenik. Ch. 6. The Verbal System Of Albanian / Vit Bubenik. Ch. 7. The Verbal System Of Tocharian / Vit Bubenik -- Sect. C. Languages With A Three-tense System. Ch. 8. Tense And Aspect In Baltic / John Hewson. Ch. 9. Tense And Aspect In Celtic / John Hewson. Ch. 10. The Latin Verbal System / John Hewson -- Sect. D. Languages With Merged The Original Aorist And Perfect Into The Preterit. Ch. 11. The Verbal System Of Germanic (gothic, Old English) / John Hewson. Ch. 12. The Verbal System Of Anatolian (hittite) / Vit Bubenik -- Sect. E. Later Developments. Ch. 13. From Ancient To Modern Greek / Vit Bubenik. Ch. 14. Development Of Modern Indic Tense-aspect System / Vit Bubenik. Ch. 15. Development Of Modern Slavic Tense-aspect System / Vit Bubenik. Ch. 16. Development Of Modern Iranian Tense-aspect System / Vit Bubenik. Ch. 17. From Latin To Modern Romance / John Hewson. Ch. 18. Tense And Aspect In Modern Germanic / John Hewson. Ch. 19. Conclusions / John Hewson And Vit Bubenik. John Hewson, Vit Bubenik. This Volume Grew Out Of A Doctoral Seminar. Includes Bibliographical References And Indexes. Presenting a general picture of the evolution of IE verbal systems within a coherent cognitive framework, this work encompasses all the language families of the IE phylum, from prehistory to present-day languages. The authors relate tense and aspect to underlying cognitive processes.