Differential subject marking in Old Indo-Iranian (original) (raw)
Related papers
Themes and Tasks in Old and Middle Indo-Aryan Linguistics 2006
The Volume under review comprises twelve papers authored by as many scholars that were initially presented at the 12th World Sanskrit Conference (Linguistics section) held at Helsinki Finland in July, 2003. The papers included in the Volume relate to several themes from historical phonology, morpho-syntax, etymology of OIA, to Iranian loan words and computer processing of Sanskrit. The Volume opens with "The development of PIE *sć into Sanskrit/(c)ch/" authored by Masato Kobayashi wherein the earlier positions on the issue are revisited and with ample data from PIE, PIIr, OIA and MIA, the author concludes that the PIIr *ć is considered to have been a palatal affricate, hence the *sć cluster involved three obstruent phases in two consonant slots (*st∫). Consequently, by the general rule of simplification, the clusterinitial consonant *s was lost leaving behind t∫, spread to two consonant slots. In pre-Vedic phonology "the feature [aspirated] was redundantly specified for all sibilants, as the sandhi -tś->cch reflects. Finally, [t∫] was phonemicized as an aspirate/(c) ch/and filled in the empty place of an aspirated voiceless palatal plosive in the consonant inventory of OIA." Hans Henrich Hock in "Reflexivization in the Rig-Veda (and beyond)" presents more evidence from Rig-Veda to demonstrate that "the reflexive possessive is complementary to middle voice verb inflection, marking the one constituent that cannot be expressed on the verb, namely the nominal genitive relation; and that the full reflexive (RV tanū′) is indeed a very recent innovation, whose development can still be traced in the Rig-Veda". The complementarity of the reflexive possessive and middle voice is based upon the arguments that "nominal genitive relation is fundamentally different from that of the case relations of verbal complements" and the adnominal genitive relation is not subcategorized on the verb". Rejecting Lehmann"s (1974) observation that PIE had no reflexive pronouns at all, (it marked reflexivization on the verb, as middle voice), simply meaning "own", Hock demonstrates that sva-does behave as a reflexive in several instances in Rig-Veda and that in the RV, (Book 10) there are some instances of the use of tanū′ as a clear reflexive, with verb in the active voice, which is an innovation and the first attestation of the later Vedic and Classical pattern in which a reflexive pronoun, nominal in origin (RV tanū′, later ātmán) has been reinterpreted as the major marker of reflexivization.
Grammatical Change in Indo-European Languages
Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 2009
The PIE gender system consisted of two genders, most likely animate and neuter; the earliest manifcstations of feminine gender were derivational and involved the suffix *-h 2 , which in origin derived abstract nouns. This suffix also gave origin to the neuter nomìnativeaccusative plural, formerly a collective rather than a count plural. The semantic development is accompanied by morphological change: in the case of the neuter nomìnative-accusative plural, a derivational suffix became an inflectional ending, while, in the case of feminine gender, a derivational suffix became the marker of an inflectional class. The two morphological developments are different, and there is no reason for assuming that one of them implied the other. However, when discussing the semantic aspect of the change, it is generally assumed that either collective preceded feminine or the other way around. In my paper I suggest a different solution by considering that the two developments must be kept separated.
The first person singular of the athematic middle optative in Vedic and Indo-Iranian
Journal of the American Oriental Society 142.2, 2022
In the first person singular of the athematic middle optative in the R̥gveda, there is strong metrical evidence that the poets knew and used forms in *-iy-a alongside the morphologically regular forms in -īy-a. I argue that the forms in *-iy-a are older and developed from PIE *-ih1-h2e by regular sound change, whereas the younger ones in -īy-a result from morphological regularization (analogy). The phonological development of *-ih1-h2e > *-iy-a provides further evidence for the historical phonology of “laryngeals” and geminate consonants in the Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European.
The ín-group: Indo-Iranian ín-stems and their Indo-European relatives
Lyuke wmer ra: Indo-European Studies in Honor of Georges-Jean Pinault, 2021
It is difficult to find a topic in Indo-Iranian, Tocharian, or comparative Indo-European linguistics worthy of our honorand that he himself has not treated extensively. 1 The present paper attempts to discuss just such a topic: the Indo-Iranian and Indo-European origins of the Old Indic ín-stems, a class of nonablauting possessive adjectives whose diachrony is somewhat unclear and whose synchronic relationship to other possessive adjectives (especially those in-vant-/-mant-and-van-) likewise merits some discussion. I argue that the derivational history of these stems touches on an aspect of Old Indic nominal morphology that our honorand himself has elaborated and elucidated on several occasions, namely the "substantivizing" function of the nominal suffix
A Grammar of Modern Indo-European
2009
nouns marked by -ti-, nouns in the religious sphere marked by -uand collectives marked by *-h. B. In addition to characterization by means of order and categories of selection, the sentence was also delimited by Intonation based on variations in pitch. 9. Proto-Indo-European Syntax 295 To the extent that the pitch phonemes of PIE have been determined, a high pitch may be posited, which could stand on one syllable per word, and a low pitch, which was not so restricted. NOTE. The location of the high pitch is determined by Lehmann primarily from the evidence in Vedic; the theory that this was inherited from PIE received important corroboration from Karl Verner’s demonstration of its maintenance into Germanic (1875). Thus the often cited correlation between the position of the accent in the Vedic perfect and the differing consonants in Germanic provided decisive evidence for reconstruction of the PIE pitch accent as well as for Verner’s law, as in the perfect (preterite) forms of the r...
Lingua Posnaniensis
The paper deals with associative plurals in new Indo-aryan languages, which are derived from the old Indo-aryan apara 'other'. these markers are found in a large number of nIa languages, but in many of these languages they underwent further grammaticalization into other grammatical units, such as honorific particle, standard plural marker, definiteness marker, marker of inalienable possession etc. among the factors which underlie this grammatical development, contacts with non-Indo-aryan languages play a significant role.