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Re: Perfect aspect

From:Ray Brown <ray.brown@...>
Date:Friday, October 1, 2004, 5:59
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" ]