Re: Go and come

On Friday, February 18, 2005, at 06:15 , Jean-François Colson wrote:

> The verbs "go" and "come" have very similar meanings.
>
> Are they really indispensable?
>
> For example if a lang has the following words:
> - dep = to move
> - da = to (direction)
> - xi = here
> - mow = home
> it would be possible to use "dep da xi" for "come here" and "dep da mow"
> for
> "go home".
>
> Are there natlangs which don't use different words for "go" and "come"?
Ancient greek didn't - and I would be very surprised if it was unique in
this respect.

The verb _erkhesthai_ could mean either 'to go' or 'to come' according to
context - whether movement was away from the speaker or towards the
speaker was shown by prepositional phrases etc.

The verb was suppletive, thus:
erkh- 'present stem' with middle voice endings.
elth- 'aorist stem' with active voice endings
ele:luth- 'perfect stem' with active voice endings
eleus- _or_ i- 'future stem': eleus- uses middle voice endings & i- uses
active voice endings.
Of course, there were other variations in the various dialects   :)

The verb survives into modern Greek, but with only two stems:
/erx- /'present stem' with middle voice endings.
/erT- / 'aorist stem' with active voice endings.
Also in the modern language it has settled down with the meaning "come".

In modern Greek "go" is /p'jeno/ "I go" (no infinitive in M. Greek) with
aorist /'pija/ "I went".

I guess the change in the use of EPXOMAI "I come, I go" --> "I come" with
a different verb for "go" is the effect of the wide use of Greek as an L2
during the Hellenistic period, and the influence of Latin & other
languages.

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" ]

Reply