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The perfect in Oscan and Umbrian1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 June 2016
Extract
A long-standing problem in the reconstruction of proto-Italic has been the wide discrepancy between the Oscan/Umbrian and Latin perfectum markers. Latin for the most part employs either -s- or -u-/-v- throughout its perfect system, e.g. serp-s-it ‘he crawled’ (cf. pres. serp-it), al-u-it ‘he nourished’ (cf. pres. al-it), amā-v-it ‘he loved’ (cf. pres. ama-t). On the other hand, Osean and Umbrian have apparently created a number of new perfect formations: an f-perfect, shared by both (O. aíkda-f-ed ‘he decreed’, U. ateřa-f-ust ‘he will have made the circuit’); a -tt-formative found only in Osean (dadíka-tt-ed ‘he dedicated’) and in a few of the Minor Dialects; the -l- and *-nky- types, both peculiar to Umbrian (ape-l-ust ‘he will have offered up’, purdi-nsi-ust ‘he will have offered’).
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , Spring 1973 , pp. 1 - 6
- Copyright
- Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association 1973
Footnotes
I should like to thank Professor N. E. Collinge of the University of Toronto for making valuable comments on an earlier draft of this article. Any errors that remain are, of course, mine.
References
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