New Indo-Aryan associative plural markers derived from Old Indo-Aryan apara 'other' and their further grammaticalization (original) (raw)
Related papers
Linguistic typology and the reconstruction of the Indo-European accusative plural
Emerita, 2010
In light of the fact that the traditional reconstruction of the Indo-European non-thematic accusative plural suffix *-ns, as the combination of the accusative desinence *-m and the plural ending *-s, violates a linguistic universal which stipulates: «If morphemes of both number and case are present and both follow or both precede the noun base, then the exponent of number almost always comes between the noun base and the exponent of case» (The Universals Archive of the Association for Linguistic Typology), this article explores a possible etymology of the suffix which is consonant with that universal. Specifically, a proposal based on what Adrados 1992 calls «the new image of Indo-European» is developed in which both elements of the suffix are construed as original deictic particles.
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.
Differential subject marking in Old Indo-Iranian
The paper deals with the variation -ās ~ -āsas in the nominative plural of masculine a-stems of Vedic Sanskrit. A preliminary analysis of the evidence displayed in the Rig-Veda suggests that the longer variant form, Vedic -āsas, was originally used for marking a contextually high degree of agentivity in low agentivity nouns. Since a variation similar to Vedic -ās ~ -āsas is also found in Iranian as well as in the distantly related Germanic languages, the origin of the unexpected doubling in the nominative plural of masculine a-stems may be attributed already to Proto-Indo-European. It is argued that the longer member of the -ās ~ -āsas opposition emerged in Proto-Indo-European out of its shorter counterpart by means of a univerbation with a pronominal clitic.
Journal of South Asian Languages and Linguistics, 2018
This is an interesting study exploring in a considerable detail the rise of the lowlevel configurationality in New Indo-Aryan from the non-configurationality in early Indo-Aryan. The data were extracted from ca. 60 primary sources (Vedic, Pali, Apabhraṃśa and Old Awadhi). The author concurs with the general assumption that Vedic Sanskrit lacks any phrasal structures. As explicated in Chapter Two ("Grammaticalization and configurationality"), in addition to the free word order (basic SOV, and OSV and VSO making the VP discontinuous) there are no obligatory function words (articles, adpositions) in Vedic Sanskrit which impose phrasal constraints on nominal expressions. At the end of a development that lasted 2000 years, Hindi-while still allowing for free constituent order-has developed low-level configurationality in terms of postpositional phrases, accompanied by a rise of obligatory function words. Thus unlike Sanskrit, Hindi does not allow for discontinuity within the NP(Adj N) or free permutation with respect to the arguments denoting the beneficiary and direct object as in example (40), Raješ= ne (choṭe bacc)e=ko kitāb bhejī 'Rajesh sent the book to the little child' (p. 100). The author shows that in Hindi the "obligatoriness constraint" of the postposition requiring a dependent has no equivalent in Vedic *bacce choṭe ko, *choṭe ko bacce, *choṭe … bacce ko). Interestingly, within the NP adnominal elements (adjectives) do not show distinctive forms for direct and oblique cases in the plural (examples 44 and 46): (choṭ-e kamr-e) =mê 'in the small room' but (choṭ-e kamr-õ) =mê 'in (the) small rooms' (p. 101). In diachronic terms the postpositional phrases are traced back to "asymmetrical groups" consisting of a nominal (or verbal) head and a dependent; thus the above examples would start in Old Indo-Aryan with obligatoriness of AN and GN as (alp-asya veśman-as) madhye (small-GEN room-GEN) middle-LOC 'in the small room' and (alp-ānām veśman-ām) madhy-e (small-GEN.PL room-GEN.PL) middle-LOC 'in the small rooms'. The diverse origins of the Hindi simple postpositions are surveyed in Chapter Three ("The diverse origins of the Hindi simple postpositions") with
The indo-european third person plural verbal suffix
Linguistica
In this paper it is suggested that the original form of the Indo European third person plural verbal suffix was *-(e/o)N and that the nasal element which appears in this suffix was or ginally a deictic particle with 'there and then' signification.