The terminology of Latin grammar has been adopted from Greek by Latin grammarians and is still in use for describing grammar in other languages. This is quite unfortunate as those Greek grammarians had no clue about comparative and historical linguistics. One of the problems is the term `perfect’, which describes an action in the past being closed. We all know that odi and novi are perfect tenses with a present meaning: I started to hate and still hate and I started to know and still know. It is less known that the same occurs in Germanic languages with regard to `to know’. In Dutch and German `weten’ and `wissen’. This verb has disappeared in modern English, but in Anglo-Saxon there is `witan ’and in modern English the noun `wit’. The verb is related to Latin `video’ `to see’. You know what you have seen. In Greek the verb for `to know’ is ` oida’ `I know’, proto-Greek `woida’ and in Sanskrit `veda’, both in Geek and Sanskrit perfect tenses with present meaning. This is also true for the Dutch and German verbs, but as their perfect tense was at some point no longer felt, new perfect tenses were invented.
Posted on: Fri, 01 Aug 2014 23:39:17 +0000
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