Re: Perfect aspect

On Thursday, September 30, 2004, at 11:03 , Peter Bleackley wrote:

> Staving Keith Gaughan:
>
>>> But why should you use the verb "to have" to express the perfect aspect?
>>> What, for example, does 'he' actually possess in "He has gone"? What is
>>> a
>>> "gone"?
>>
>> You're right, and that's just me letting my anglophonic bias butt in.
>> <smack!> Correction noted. It tends to happen when you need to spend all
>> your time speaking the language.
>
>
> Actually, this is an interesting question. Exactly how and why did "have"
> get the sense of "auxiliary verb for perfect aspects"?
It's a Latin idiom that is found as early as Plautus in the 3rd cent BCE.
I explained in my email of 28th Sept. If you can't find it, I'll mail it
again privately.

Ray
===============================================
http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown
ray.brown@freeuk.com
===============================================
Anything is possible in the fabulous Celtic twilight,
which is not so much a twilight of the gods
as of the reason."      [JRRT, "English and Welsh" ]