before pie_ motives for thematism.pdf

8/11/2019 Before PIE_ Motives for Thematism.pdf

1/26

Folia

Linguistica Historica XVI /7-2 pp. 3-27

Societas Linguistica Europaea

BEFOREPIE:

MOTIVES

FOR

THEMATISM

N.E. COLLINGE

0.

Studies

ofProto-Indo-European morphology and morphosyntax

have

lagged

behind

those

making

progress on its

phonology.

The latter enjoyed

the limelight in the

nineteenth

Centuryand a

little

later;and

more recently

waves

of the

laryngeal

theory an d varieties of the glottalic theory have

maintained the

impetus

not to m ention

more

idiosyncratic ideas of diph-

thonga l bases andfreelyvarying

con sonant-features).

Still,in the last quar-

ter-century m uch solid w ork

has

been done

on

PIE s

gram matical

history,

although the current fashion seems to turn to such morphophonological

matters

s

suffixal shape, paradigm dynamics, and the like.

In

pursuit

of

genetic connections there

has

been also

an

urge

to em-

brace

super-divergence. Those attracted

by

Pedersen s

notion

(1924;

see

also 1962: 338)

of a

nostratic

Ursprache

have used macro-derivation

to

link PIE

with

Dravidian, Kartvelian, Afro-Asiatic

and

Semitic

- and

even

that domain seems undulyparochial

to

some

who

would cast

the net

even

wider like Greenberg; see Matisoff 1990 on this zeal for megalo-com-

parison ).

To this end many tradition al findings have been exploited, those

especially of phonology and lexical semantics. Shapes-with-meanings al-

ready

assigned to PIE

have been recognised elsewhere.

But PIE is no

more than a diagrammatic pro-language, summarising the reconciliation

of

various

reflexes

seen or deducted in the

evidential

languages; and that

summary cannot long precede their first diaspora. When morphosyntax

has been brou ght in, nuclear sentence structures in IE their transitivity

patterns)

have been linked with

active or ergative modes of

grammar

- a

tactic

of

long stand ing

-

wherever these

are found.

Even

an

improve-

ment-succession has been suggested, from active via ergative to accusative

type. But the unreal and achronic nature of PIE defeats this approach,

apart from

the

doubtful Status

of

individual proposals.

Yet what if we can get back to some firmer internal history of PIE

grammar? There should be traceable lines of cognitive development pre-

ceding and helping to shape the latest form of its morphosyntax. This

pre-morphosyntactic

era may both constrain

megalo-comparison

and tidy

up bitsof PIE morphology

which

haveresisted

attempts

to fit them

into

the

overall

picture sofar.Here willbeexamined

three

similar, but distinct

in

time

s

well

s

function), marking-procedures in a

proto-language

Brought to you by | University of Sussex

Authenticated | 139 184 30 135

Download Date | 8/23/12 10:50 PM


2/26

which was still morphologically immature. That is not yet PIE. As a name

for

it when it is struggling to denote half-cognitive,

half-grammatical

cate-

gories let us use pre-morphological PIE - in

brief,

PPIE. This title is

not to be confused with Rix s pre-Proto-IE (1988: 101) which indicates

all pre-diaspora PIE; it is nearer to Georgiev s

(1984)

PIE I, orFrh-

indoeuropisch.

Considering arou nd twenty millennia, Georgiev

saw no

morphologyat all emerging in this first phase (aspect, personal pronouns

and unmarked locative being the first fruits of its successor, PIE II, when

grammar takes root

and

produces other pronouns, too,

and precase

par-

ticles (this isM ittelindoeuropisch . This timetable is possible and ignores

larger genetic speculations. But

unhappily

it also ignores th e three mech-

anisms examined

below,

though their traces need explanation

and

their

relative chronology consideration. And in these mechanisms the common

element of

form

isthematism.

PPIE

deployed thematism in various ways both before and

after

its

Speakers became sensitive to a

fundamental

communicative distinction:

that between entities (which in a given

context

may or may not

exist

fo r

Speaker

and hearer) and events or predications (which may or may not

be

true s

to fact). This is the essential basis for the evolving syntactic

dyarchy,

of

N(oun)

and

V(erb).

The

physical sign

was the

suffixation

of

a

lexical root

by

means

of a

vowel

of

middle height (front

or

back, these

later alternating). Theroot became a stem ; it received further, andlater,

affixes to convey the mittelindoe uropisc h categories noted above and

then others. Possibly the

early

pronoun alone overlaps in emergence with

the thematic vowel. Thematism does not occur sos to set up the stem;

it m erely joins w ith th e instantiation of that structure by unextended con-

sonant-final,

or (other)

vowel-final,

forms. Hence its name is unf ortunate:

thetic would

avoid misleading suggestions

s to its role. But the

term

is

traditional

and

will

be

used

here;

of

itself

it

explains nothing. ( Ha lf-the-

matics ,like Latin fer-t,where syncope or similar interference has obscured

the issue, are here

ignored.)

Each of the three types of thematism is merkmaltragend(shaped by

th e

added vowel)

and

markiert (carrying

a

positive

function

which

th e

unextended form

lacks).

In

order

they are:

(I) basic root plus front vowel: (N

(II) entity-root plus bac k vowel:

(III) event-root plus alternatin g vowel:

V

e

/o.

(I) belongs to an epoch

well predating

the inflectional and

derivational

phase

of PIE; it is e ssentially ofPPIE. (The other types reflect cognitive

revelations possibly peculiar toPPIEand early PIE; there is no need to

relyon finding them in, say, Kartvelian.) Indeed,

PPIE s

choice of e

s





3/26

the

sign

of (I) is idiosyncratic, and probably a bar to megalocomparison

even at the beginnings of speech.

There are problems with (II) and (III) if we accept notions of early

active

or

ergative

in Indo-European.

Form-function relations ought

to

leave

plenty of vestiges; and the

chronology

becomes awkward - because

if thematism

has

that sort

of

role

it

must

be

part

of

early

PIE and not

PPIE

at all. The evidence noted below suggests otherwise: and the only

language-group linked with PIE (even nostratically) which seems to be

ergative, southern Causasian,

is

really pseudo-ergative (for this diagnosis

see Trask 1979). And activity remains in more than vestigial form only in

tongues

s

distant

s

Guarani

or

Eastern Porno. Comments

on

these

syn-

tactic are

offered below,

in

connection with

the

possible origins

of

this

or

that shape

of

words.

The

scepticism here voiced

s to

their

relevance

to (P)IE history receives some support from Matsumoto (1993), although

there

an

active stage

is

accepted.

If,

however, thematism

is

divorced

from

any such mode

of

grammar,

the

Charge

of

anachronism need

no

longer

be feared.

To pass

to the

mechanisms themselves,

in

their apparent relative

chronological order:

1. (N V)+e

An

arbitrary starting point may be the pre-verbal base *g

h

en +

e

set

up by Kurylowicz in 1964 (62-63) sunderlying the

later

PIE perfect. This

was conceived

to be a

root (conveying action) enlarged

by a suffix (of

state

or

undergoing)

to

produce

an

item

of

no m inal Status;

in

later terms,

an

adjective

or

participle. Watkins

(1969: 105-118)

charted

its

evolution

into the basic member of the PIE set of verbal forms which displayed

sensitivity to

time, voice, person

and

number.

The

original form

is ,

seem-

ingly, metanalysed:

the

structure

l*g

h

en

+

a

plus (N-nominative) zero/

passes

to /*g

h

en-

plus zero plus (verbal) e/ ,

the final

element assuming

the

signalling

of

activity/predication.

This result, no longer n om inal, is then

seen s

that non-person, non-number

form of the

verb which

is

sub-

sequ ently called third person Singular

and

taken

to be the

platform

on

which m ore complex

forms are

differentially built

(on

this concept, known

s Watkins

law,

see Collinge 1985: 239-240). In succession, the

precise

order being here irrelevant, the personal m arkers, the

here

and now*

suffix

-l/,and the middle voice sign +oa ll fall into

place.

The early +e shrivels

into

an

adventitious

and

otiose

piece

of

morphology. This history

is

possible. It may miss

much.

Kurylowicz glossed bis

launch-pad

s

(he is (being)/hasbeen) killed .

This verbal adjective

was

supposed

to be

reverbalised

by

accent shift

or

metaphonic or apophonic

ablaut:

so *g*

h

onel*g

h

onel*g

h

n?lo, plus af-

fixes. It

become

the PIE

perfect swell s

itsoldest form of

medio-passive.





4/26

Yet only a

passive sense

is first

offered

for it; and

such suggested perfects

s

*iouge

are

active.

The

function

of

e

is

likened

to

that

of

later

H

but the latter is passive-intransitiverather than middle (cf. Skt.

hata-

and

gata-).

The path which takes *g *

h

ene+i to active Gk.

theinei 'kills'

is

equally obscure.

Let us rather shift our gaze to an actually documented (unaccented)

e.One

proposed category exploiting that shape

is the

famous

injunc-

tive ,

aPIE

feature much

in favour

again,

after its first

proposal

by

Brug-

mann(1880-2)whose examples of its simplest form were Skt.

bharat,

sthf,

Gk.phere,

st f .

It is

only

the final

person-marker that

is clear

(-f

> -0

in

Greek); unless crasis

is

proved,

stht,

stt

do not

show

e.

And in

most examples quoted by adherents, aspect is already present v ia apo-

phonyor

reduplication (so,

in

Greek,leipe,mimne

- cf.

West1989).Hence

the thematic

vowel looks

to be a vestige of some earlier positive

Signal,

now

reduced to being a s tem-formant only. As to the injunctive in general,

Hoffmann

(1967: 140) assigns

to it the

indication

of

iterative action

or

general validity (re-cast by Dunkel (1992: 200) s the eternally valid').

More interesting is H offmann s

claim,

based on the absence of expected

augments

in

Vedic, that here

we

have

a

tenseless, moodless

and

non-re-

portive verbal category, which merely

'mentions'

erwhnt)

the

action.

That,sWest says(1989:135), looks

like

'aprimitive featureof the

Indo-

European verb .

If

so it is worth seeking out in its pre-personal stage

(and preablautal, pre-reduplicative stages, too). Dunkel

first

uses

the

sup-

posed

injunctive to

explain (hoping

to

improve

on

Szem erenyi s

(1979)

metathesised

phraseswhich

may

underline

initial/? Variation in

some

Greek lexemes)

th e

left-hand members

of

compounds like

Av. vanat-

p^sana,

Ved.Bharad-vja- or Gk. heleptolis *helet-polis). With perhaps

more cogency, he then (203-206) analysestypes like Ved.

Trasa-dsya-,

Gk.

Mene-laos

s

having

s

the first

element

imperative

forms. (French

porte-monnaile , Eng.

forget-me-not are

adduced

s

evidential

of the

process.)

Further, fo r Dunkel these forms are of uncertain person s be-

tween second and

third

- which putsusintoan erawhen even that dis-

tinction

was not yet cristallised into a formal morphological Opposition.

If an imperative did stand there, a solution becomes possible which

is more compatible with an early stage of

cognition,

when in Speakers

urgency and imprecision went band in

band.

W hy should th e activity b e

so economically but clearly specified at all? I t may have been to expostu-

late,

in a

peremptory

and

jussive fashion, towards

an

entity

(that

it

appear

or

that

it

act)

or

towards

an

event (that

it

happen).

In

other words, that

N or V be

manifested. Such

a

jussive, arising from

otherwise

thwarted

needs,is a likely

enough

origin at the envisagedpointin the

evolution

of

the languageifnot of all speech.Thereafter,whenPIE hasarrived,the

form willbe 'imperative'of anevent onceV is

morphologically

furnished,





5/26

and 'vocative' of an

entity once

N is

similarly paradigm atised.

It is not a

real player

in the

emergent drama

of

nominal inflection (when argument-

role

and spatial relation are formalised),

but

a vestigial element parked

there, and

feit

to be worth keeping. So much is indicated by:

(1) the betra ying absence of crasis

or

contractual lengthening in the

o-stem

vocatives: hence

f-,

added

to the

basic roo t, versus e.g. stem

extension dative

- i < *-o +ei;

(2) the form s persistence (even, spottily, into m od ern Greek );

(3) the quite different

processes

invoked to sup ply the same signal

else-

where: e.g. zero

affix

(Skt.

rjan \

truncation (Skt.

tanu\

see Beekes

1985: 101;

for

j-loss

see

Winter

1969);

accent

shift

(Gk.

g fmai .

This makes understandable Beekes'

paradoxical

remark (1985: 106) on

'the

ending

of the

vocative (which

hadno

ending

in PIE)'.

There

is,

however, no need to follow him (101) in equating the expostulatory suffix

e

with thefree-standing ex clama tory particle.The formerwas aprimeval

addition when N and V differed

only

crudely. Through

history

its am-

bivalencebetween them abides. It makes possible, for instance, the famous

Carpel

jest

of

Trimalchio (Pertonus,

Satyricon 36)

who,

in

calling

so

upon

bis

carefully

named servant,

fuses

entity with event:

eodem

uerbo

et

uocat

et imperat .

Winter

rightly sees

(1969: 212) that imperative and vocative

aremirror imagesof each other; he deplores the absence of proof the reof,

but what further proof is needed? An addressee is for both a prime re-

quirement. That thus

the second

person

acquiresa

high

degree of

cen-

trality is a phenomenon encountered elsewhere: in most Algonquian

lan-

guages

a

verbal construct

has to

have

an

initial

k- if

'you'

is

included

in

any nuclear

role,

agent or patient. So we seem to be justifying at last

Somm er s opinion

(1937:

187-195) that here

is a

pre-inflectional element.

In V,sin N, the function broke loose from the simple form, and m anifold

shapes of PIE imperatives then appear. No

later

development quite dims

the

light

ofPPIE 4 e,

despite

the

inclusion

of

third person

forms in the

'mood'(nottomention first personhortatorymarkers). As a directappeal

to the hearer,

s

existent or active, e so began and so continued.

2.

N + o

Therehasbeen unease in recent yearsstowhat element is the head

of a noun-phrase. Deictics,

some

prono uns am ong them, have won many

votes

s candidates fo r

that Status, critical

in any

head-driven grammar.

Hence

the DPtheo ry (replacing theNP),and theneoCho mskyan DP-node

(cf. Webelhuth 1995: 89 fn 25;398). This

reassessment

affects such ana-

lyses

s

thatofNichols(1986),which

sets

apart those languages (the

ma-

jority)which signal m odification within the phrase by a head-marker, those

which

put the

marker

on the

dependent item,

and

some which

do

both





6/26


7/26

thematic

and

athematic declensions. Besides,

the

System

is recent

s

being

post-Anatolian

(pace Kammenhuber (1985: 449-450)

on

Luwian

possible

/-feminines);

Hittite had nominals which were lexically female

(cf.

Brosman 1984:

346 and

1994),

but not

morphologically. Gender

I,

however, is the prior dichotomy into plus/minus

animate.

Here a formal

plus marker is expected; but the facts are discouraging: (1) V-governing

+S is

added

to all

animate (non-neuter)

subjects - allowing for

Szeme-

renyi s law

(see Collinge 1985: 237-238)

- and

does

not tie up

notably

with

+o-; nor is its

presence

in

athematics

the

result

of

subsequent dif-

fusion, s

far s one can see. (2) Neuters are the institutionalised

Version

of

inanimates,

and are

never animate

in the

early

evidence.

But

their dis-

tribution is unhe lpful: absent in diphthongal stems and in the minority in

/-stems and

M-stems, they

are

(equally strangely) present among

the ap-

parent founder-members

of the

the m atic declension (cf. Brosm an 1979:

61). They occur the re f ractiona lly more frequently than

in

Hittite high-

vowel

stems. It is usual to accept

s

original in PIE *yiigo-,

*pedo-,

*wergo-

(and possibly

*Hwerso- ,

*dno- *dro- , *petro-/ptero- . It is bey ond belief

that athematic inanimates

are all secondary;but

conversely thematic

in-

animates seem

so

numerous

in

Hittite (about 170, according

to

Brosman

1979),

and

them atic neuters

so

solidly testified

s

original,

sto

cast doubt

on

any proposed stage (even Ur-PPIE ) wherein existed

only

non-neuter,

animate, nominalswith o-. Of course, the

later

proliferation of o-stem

membership (especially

in

Hittite

and

Indic,

less

markedly

in

Greek

and

Latin) - wherein neuters are very com mon (Brosm an 1984: 357) - does

cloud

the

issue somewhat;

and

animacy

and sex are

always shifting affairs

in

grammar

(e.g. Greek

loved to use feminine

thematics

for

inanimate

objects).

But the

evidence

does

not add up to

indicate that gender,

of

either sort, was the reason behind thematism in N.

2.2. N-thematism, unlike verbal

e

/o

discussed

below,

does

not

spread

acrosssub-categories; nouns do not have e.g. voice or tense inherently.

Perhaps, therefore,

its

con tribution

was

rather

to

some sem antic property,

peculiar to that lexical

class.

But one may pause to wonder whether

4

pre-

morphosyntactic

might mean

pre-dating accusative-type

syntax

5

.

That

is,

whether thematism

is

among

the

vestiges

of an

earlier

active or ergative

type of Operation. That ergativity was a stage of PIE has been suggested

intermittently

from

Uhlenbeck (1901),

via

Pedersen (1907, 1933)

and

Vail-

lant

(1936), down

to

recent analysts like Schmalstieg

(1980,

1986, 1988)

or

Kortlandt

(1983).

Beekes

(1985:

192) derives

the

entire

o-stem

para-

digm

from the

single

os

ending (for such

paradigm-creation see Plank

1991),

s this

is for

him

the ergative

marker

in the PIE

hysterodynamic

inflection

(but

see

M atsumoto 1993

on

this).

If

here

we

have

a

declension

which is s a

whole inimical

to entities which do not readily

serve

s





8/26

10

agents, then indeed

One would

not expect neuters in the

o-stems

(Beekes

1985: 194). Yet neute rs and o ther inan im ate s occur the re

freely.

And in

only

ergativoid nominals

are at

home there, what

is the function of the

+

s marker? Again,

if

nouns

not so

marked

are

doing

some

other

Job

than the ergative, why keep their +o? (Such paradigm

bu i ld-up

elsewhere

tends to be either retricted to levelling,

s

when Latin replaces gen. sg.

- with -/f around 25 BC to level it with -ins,-ium,-f; or is stepped ,

s

Tocharian

first

establishes an oblique case and then adds further suf-

fixes to it to provide an array of spatial cases.)

Now sporadic recourse to

ergativity

is comm on enough. Celtic has an

Innovation

w hich signals

alike

the

intransitive sub ject

(S) and the

transitive

object (P): Irishleabhare

it

is a book agrees with

bua ilim

e beat

him .

The Hindi typemaine kitb

likhl

is a neo-ergative construct (on which

see Bubenik 1993)

deriving from

Sanskrit participal

maya pustakarii likhi-

tam wherein by me the book is

written

becomes

(erg.)

wrote the book

(absol.) Garrett proposes (1990) that

a

Common Anatolian ergative

Operation

arose

similarly

from transitive

V

with null subject plus neuter

N (instrumental ablative), the latter s ending -anz a)) com ing ultimately

from *-anti.

This

split

usage with neuters, like Hittite clitics conveying

only

S, is

post-PIE.

All these examples show ho w ergativity can pop up

at any time; that rules them out s strong proof of

early

or

inevitable

stages

of evolving

grammars.

For

ergativity

s

itself something led

up to,

note Anderson 1977.

PIE to-

seems

to fuse S and P in

e.g. Skt.

gata-

gone

but hata- killed ;

but, pace Garrett 1990: 263, this means only that

it

signals resultative

Status

(like potential result in Greek -tos; and co-oc-

curring with

an

agent marker

in

Skt, k-ta-va n)t-).

As for the

deceptive

English ergativoid + ee, ma rking S/P versus A in escapeelemployee versus

employer, this attaches widely to any

V-concerned

N. So in referee, am-

putee\

even

in V-less

lexemes like

refiigee.

Only special pairing preserves

-erl-ee w here

-ed

is available, notably when three entities are involved (s

in mortgaging). To all

this scepticism

on the historical

relevance

of

erga-

tivity one may addVillar s

doubts

(1983,

1984)

on it s a PIE

mechanism,

considering

its

forms.

Objections arise

to the

supposition

of a PIE

active epoch, too.

It

might

be reflected in case (so Matsumoto 1993). But that early IE behaviour

was of the

active/stative sort

describedby

Klimov

(1977) has

been rather

less frequently

urged, despite

the

active

-*

ergative

-*

accusative develop-

ment

noted above. (In the

Klimovian

model, nouns in pre-passive con-

structions

or

functioning s patients

are

Stative,

and

they become active

when they

lead

intransitive predications or act

agents.)

The tension be-

tween

activity and state is probably universal; it is certainly endemic in

IE. Aspect

enshrines resultative state

(perfectivity), and

even

the

mixed

idea

of

on-going action

(imperfectivity) s

against simple action.

The





9/26

11

middle voice

is

often belived

to

relate

at

least partially

to

stativity:

cf.

e.g.

Jasanoff

1978:

119

Rix 1988: 104,

166-167

sees them

s

partners

syn-

cretising inlatePIE - or tochangeofstate, sbyHar t 1988: 88). Indeed,

stativity was positively lexicalised by denominatives in

+e s c))-

see

Watkins 1971: 90-91; Jasanoff 1978: 125). But it is not clear which is the

unmarked

member of the pair inIE; and so relation to the Klimovmodel

is hard to state. In any case, n on e of this really ma tters because the t iming

iswrong.

Active-type

grammar has its own prerequisites: it needs enough

morphology

already inplace to signal argumen t-relation , N-V concord or

government, and verbal diathesis. But the

pre-morphological

nature, and

the still

evolving

morphophonology, of thematism force our eyes back to

amoreprimitive era

PPIE)

inwhichamorelikelyreason for this ma rkin g

is

a fundamental

cognitive appreciation

of sub-types of

items here

of N).

The recourse is not so much systemic

s

epistemic.

Twoother facts about

the o-stems

should

be

borne

in

mind.

1) It has

long been noted that between the IE languages there iscon siderable dis-

agreement s

to

which lexical items belong

in

that declension. This dis-

agreement

widens

s

the

declension becomes more populous,

and the

lex-

emic matching

is

particularly sparse between Anatolian

and the

rest

of

IE. 2)

Those

lexemes which

are

safely

deduced

to be

original

o-stems

are

also very

few

cf. e.g. Brosm an 1972: 62).

In

seekingPPIEmotivation

for marking off these words, one must allow for their being a minority

of oddities with local control on their selection.

There

is

another possible explanation

for

thembased

on an

earlykind

of sentence-architecture.

The PIE

pattern

of

case-marked roles

in a

t ran-

sitivity

System may have

succeeded

one in which, above all, one N was

limelighted s

the

topic

of the

communicat ion.Sen sitivity

to the

perspec-

tive

of the

event

sets

up

Topics and Com men ts) instead

of, or in

interplay

with, Subjects. Note here

Li

1976,

and

especially therein Lehmann

and

Li - Thompson.) Given an epoch when one of these stood out s the

essentials ignandum,+ could

be a

vestige

of the

signalling.

A

top icalising

PPIE or

just

a

topic-prominent PPIE;

see

Lehmann 1976: 456)

is

sup-

ported

by the

absence

of any

constraint among

the thematics

arising

from

inanimacy. A Speakermay set up

anything

s hisTopic. That the original

thematics were

so

few,

and

neuters made

up so

high

a

proportion

of

them

evenso,doesnot then matter. Moreover,

diffusion

ofo-stem membership

is

just

s

plausible

from a

starting point

in

topicalisation.

On the

other

band,

topic-marking implies

a

choice between multiple arguments

s

to

which is to be the topic without disruption of the event itself or the

various roles).Then

the

distinction between e.g.

a topicalised agent/actor

and a topicalised

patient/outer party will

need

signalling s

in

Tagalog

both byparticle and byverb affix). But no IE or PIE mechanism of that

sort

hasbeen identified;

wordorder

andpossible

intonational devices

are





10/26

12

irrelevant to our search, even if the latter were accessible. Voice might

have

been

so

used;

but the

most likely nuclear Opposition would have

demanded an active/passive contrast, while the obvious and agreed de-

duction from IE comparison is that the middle preceded the passive and

was the source (apart from some endings of basically Stative sense) of its

forms.This, again, is a false trail to the explanation of thematism in

PPIE.

2.3. If we return to the notion of

early

cognitive demands, various par-

ticularities suggest themselves.

If an

entity needs

to

receive special sig-

nalling it is presumably difficult to establish, in a sentence-usable value,

in its own right. It may be interpretable in speech only if :

(1) some other entity can be presumed s its anchor; or

(2) its pu rpo rt is determinable from the speech-context; or

(3) it is delineated by, or

cognitively

derived from, some basic root in

the

same semantic

field.

These

adjustments

may be

termed those

of (1)

(cor)relativity;

(2)

con-

text-sensitivity; (3) secondary definition. C omm on to them is the inderlying

sense

of

bafflement,

and its

dispersal,

among early communicators.

In this connection (especially in considering the first and second con-

ditions) it is

useful

to recall a group of nom inals noted by Schmidt

(1986:

96). They are not quite homogeneous, but in all three sorts they combine

a lack of objective Status with a readiness to serve

s

agents. They are:

kinship terms, names and pronouns

(let

us say, the KNP set). For first

noticing their like behaviour credit

is

usually given

to

McLendon (1978,

reporting

on

Eastern

Porno, an

active-type Hokan language

of

northern

California; the example is also used by Mallison - Blake 1981: 52). Does

0-marking

tie in

with

any of

these explicative mechanisms?

2.3.1.With a strictly correlative solution the kinship terms fit well.

Uncle

presupposes nephewlniece and imp lies relative ages;

cousin

is translative

between

2 +

persons;

no

term

is

absolute. Formally

the

picture

is

cloudier.

PIEkinship terms can be thematic: Hitt. alias

father

(cf.

annas mother )

agrees

with atta in Hellenic, Germanic and Slavic traces; Hitt.

huhhaS

grandfather

goes with Lat. auos\

and

son

is often

thematic

s Gk.

hu y)os,

Celt. *makkos.

But

w-stems

are

rife

and not all

attributable

to

analogy

or

attraction: Lat.

nurusmay

derive from

PIE

snoru- son s

wife

(so Szemerenyi

1977: 68),

the

underlying

form

being sunu i suyu

and

swe

are

equally original. Besides,

the

need

for a

clear relational marker

was

satisfied

not by

thematism

but by

creating

the

kinship marker par

excellence

in

+ t)er

(on

which,

and the

similar

+w y)

y

see

Benveniste

1973: 171, 205-206; also Gamkrelidze - Ivanov 1984: 761-772).

Names

are not

correlative:

one is not

John simply

in

relation

to

another s being Charles or

M ary.

Relativity may be

imposed,

by reference





11/26

13

to historical or literary patterns

( he

played

Hai

to my

Falstaff

etc.) or

in

legalistic

formulae

(s

in the

Roman

w ife s

marital declaration

ubi tu

Gaius ego Gaia)\ it is not inherent. Nor is

there evidence that thematism

was essential in (P)PIE names, even s basic s those of gods or rivers;

and we lack a credible history of IE onomastic Formation in general.

Pronouns

agree

with

other nominals

s to

some endings

in the

o-stem

declension.

So in the

nominative plu ral

in -01, the

ablative singular

in -:d

(a significantly

rare

use of the plain

voiced

stop, or

glottalic ejective,

s

a PIE grammatical

affix),

an d perhaps in the genitive singular (Beekes

(1985:

186) derives

the

Greek

H os-o from a

post-Mycenaean pronominal

source).

Bu t

these agreements

are too

sporadic

to

offset

the

fact

that

while pronouns are often opposed in deixis (this versus that, o r hiciste-ille,

in relation to the

speaker s

location) they are not correlative: that is, in

he buys these and sells those

th e

verbs entail each other

but the

pronouns

do not

(cf. Fillmore 1977:

72-73).

A more serious objection still is the existence among the thematics of

items

like

th e

widespread,

and formally and

sem antically consistent,

lexeme

*wlk

w

o-/luk

w

o-. It is

hard

to

conceive

any

sense

in

w hich

the wolf

is necessarily (cor)relative to anything

eise.

Yet it seems to be a founder

member

of the

paradigm.

2.3.2.The KNP set is more homogeneous in its

sensitivity

to the context

(s with type (2) above). For

them,

context presents

itself

s a

series

of

concentric

cricles. The

outermost

is the world of

discourse,

in

which

names

operate.

Then comes the social circle

within

which the kinship

terms make

sense,

with

a

smaller circle

of

local

or

familir referents.

A

yet

smaller

circle,

of

immediate speech

Situation,

gives meaning

to the

deictics; whilethe narrowest band of alll ts T and

*you

be understood,

this being

each successive

utterance.

Yet

again

w e

face patchiness

of

for-

mal

incidence in the various rings. It is quite understandable to desire to

mark

those lexemes which lack

a

context-free

In terp reta tion ; even e.g.

*woik o- dwelling may

convey

no clear

idea

of its

part

in

life,

let alone

its local shape, except

s

an element of the speech Situation. B ut whereas

an

approaching stranger, encountering

the

utterance give

them to

H ilary s

cousin,

can

attach

no

specific

content

to any of the

three

KNP

terms,

in

give

them to H ilary s horse at least the

last word conveys

a

clear

sense

and possible

Identification.

Yet the PIE word for

horse

is another

early

o-stem,

and defeats the contextual solution.

2.3.3.Let ustest

type (3), secondary

deflnition. As is

well known,

in PIE

an added - o- m ay signify a

derivation

N -> N or

A (dj):

a

Standard ex ample

is*roteH2 wheeF

(Lat.

rota)

* *rotH2-o- Vheeled

(Skt.

ratha-

chariot ).

Genitives in

-o

are relevant,

given

the adjectival

value

of the genitive (and

vice

versa).

Even

the use of

o

s a

linking

device in

compounds with





12/26

14

many stem-types may be a later extension of this sign of modification.

It

is therefore attractive to suppose that already in

PPIE

some roots were

thus

given

an

immediate extension

of

meaning;

to put it

more crudely,

some lexemes were usable only

if

the y could

be

interpreted s sub-types,

or special m anifestation s, of

existing

roots which had cognitive acceptance.

Thus *yug+o is the agricultural application of *Vyug ( join * yoke ),

and *woik'+ o

understood only

in the light of *Vwk' ( dwelP -> dwelling ).

Not many entities

would

seem so defeating s to need this epistemic

lo-

cating; hence the

low

n um ber of original N

-l

o lexemes. And the choice

would

depend

on the

speech group; hence

the

sparseness

of

interlingua l

cognates in that declension. To mark urgency at the N

=

V stage +e

was used; with separated N, recourse to the parallel back

vowel

is very

na tural. Patchiness

of

adoption produces

*nerin

Greek

((a)ner-) but *nero

in

Indic

(Skt.

nara-) \ man

and

manlike

were rivals, and perhaps the

basic form seemed overstrong, so that Latin has it only onomastically, in

Ner-.Patchy K NP incidence

is

reasonable too,

and

o- mark ing

may

Start

so.

But

a serious problem arises, none the

less.

One is obliged to find,

or

cogently

conjecture, an

underlying root

(N or V) in all cases.

This

is

not

straightforward even with

KNP items;

with objective items,

s

ma n y

undoubtedly are, the challenge is greater. For example, under the wolf

word there mustlurk some root

-

presumably *VJk

w

/luk

-

with

a

credible

m eaning which wolves can live up to. Perhaps it is *howP, an obvious pro-

pensity of the species; the activity is denoted by ul/ol in onomatopoetic

words elsewhere. This

is

just

the

sort

of

challenge

to fire the

ingenuity

of IE scholars.

[2.3.4.

Let us

take

a

speculative instance.

One can

easily belive that

the

horse

was noted

s

having

a characteristically

large

and expressive eye.

Then we require a root

*Vek

w

,

balancing the known *Vk

w

so common

in semantically related form s. Now,

in

establishing

the

dorsal stops

of

PIE,

some award original Status

to a

unisegmental labiovelar (the phonic

ele-

ments being later separated out in e.g. Anatolian or Tocharian B); others

think

that *k

w

is a

secondary contraction

of

bisegmental

kw or

k w

in

some languages (or in some words in those languages,

s

Sanskrit has

sacate

but asva-). The Indo-Iranian evidence suggests PIE ek wo-\ but

Celtic (OWel. epo) and Germanic (OE eoh) and Latin (s?quo- is like

s quor)

justify

an

Urform with

-k

w

-.

That some degree

of

co-existence

(and squinting between them ) is to be recognised isclear from Gk. hippos,

wherein

(apart

from theoddly high first vowel and the dialectal aspiration)

the -pp-

needs

explanation. (So it does in Boetian Thio-ppastos. In each

case

the

usual etymology

is from forms with medial *-k'w-.Then Greek

should lose the labial with or without retention of syllabic weight, if the





13/26

15

historyof other - C w > - sequences is our guide (so

monos/monos

from

- H H > -

tettareslpisures from

-tw-).

The

expected

form

is

then

*ikos or

*/:/coy

or

ikkosj of

which

only the

last

is found

(and only

in Etymologicum

Magnum

474. 12). The labiality m ust come from somewhere

eise,

and the obvious

source is the

rival -k

w

-

which before back vowels gives -/?- in Greek. Con-

versely,

if -k

w

~

is credited to the etymon the gemination needs excuse,

and

this

appears to be the

influence

of

bisegmental -k w-. Formal rivalry

seems to occur, then (see Szemerenyi 1990: 69 on the debated relation

of these consonantal combinations). If so, a root *Vek

makes

sensible

Szem erenyi s

etymology

ofblep (Laconian - glep) s from

*g

w

l-ek

w

-

cast

(my)

glance

at

(1969:

236-238;

1974:

145-146).

( Bu t

the

e -alternant

is

hardly a retrograde format ion ,s he says. If it reflects th e PIE me ta -

phonic stage it should be o (s it occurs in the noun element of the un-

derlying

phrase); if the verb is a late u nilingua l creation, a clearcut Greek

equation of back vowel

with

n o u n bu t front with verb is not there; cf.

nouns like belos,

tekos

with verbs like boulomai,lou.And at

least

one

would look

for a

pairing

of

blep

and

*blopos.)

If the

horse were termed

th e looking or

big-eyed

anim al, then *ek

w

o-/ek w o- is a ready form ation.

Of course, one m ight object th at dogs, too, have struc k hum ans, and no

doubt th e

Indo-Europeans,

with their

large

and

soulful

eyes. Well, th e

same etym on (but w ith zero grade and a nasal extension) is at hand: *k

w

o-

n/k wo-n (s

was

suggested

by

Cohen (1988-91)

to the

surprise

of

some:

see Polome 1994: 195). Greek ku-on-, Skt. svan-, Lith.

su-

all fit; Latin

would have *guon-(i)- *coni- (which

was

revocalised

to

canis

to

avoid

collision with

the

other

*coni~

word

ash,

dust

- cf. Gk.

konis

-

which

went

to cinis\ this seems more credible than that the -0- derived analogi-

cally

to

catulus

pup , s Szemerenyi (1987: 878) thinks). A corresponding

bisegmental *ok

w-

should accom pany the com m on *ok

w

- in this m eaning;

note

its

traces

in

Attic Greek

triottis

(-0CC-),

prospon

(-o:C-),

Homeric

eis

Spa\

2.4. After all, however, thematic neuters import problematic features of

their own:

2.4.1.

PPIE Speakers would have had no difficulty in apostrophising in-

animates if,

s

is probable, their W el tanschauung was animistic. Nor

does

it ever trouble Speakers, to judge from

Philoctetes

8 toxon phflon (So-

phocles,Philoc. 1128), or Lear s blow, winds, and crackyour cheeks (III 2),

or a

contemporar/s

come

on,

car

t

start, will

youl But ,

while

inanimates

which are admitted to the m asu line- fem inine set do possess a vocative in

-e

(s

Roman poets

address

their opus

s l ibelle - cf.

M artial

4.

89),

an-

imate referents which happen to have neuter forms never do. Even s

lates Plautus females with neuter names have o- less vocatives like mea

Gymnasium (several

examples are in the scene at Cistellaria 51-110).





14/26

16

There is no warrant for

recognising

an e-vocative in Indo-Irania n or An a-

tolian, where

vowel

histories obscure what is probably the

Stern-final

-o -

of the class. In other words, where the expoctulatory suffix is employed,

a

vocative

in

-e entails

a nominative in

-os.After all,

it is

understandable

to call on (and appropriately mark) only an entity which is capable of

appearing and/or postively acting. Thus this original cognitive linking, once

established, becomesset s hard s apieceofmorphological granite.

2.4.2.It is harder, however, even to a pproach an answer sto why neuters

in

the o-stem

paradigm,

and

there

alone,

possess

a final

-m

in the lexical

(or non-oblique)

case.

At first they comprise only inanimates; these are

unlikely actors or instigators at the Start, and

long

remain equally

unlikely

s subjects

of

sentences

(s

obviously

in

Hittite

and

Greek). Therefore

they do not need a nominative m arke r to separate their

non-existent

agent

role from

their nominal patientive one. They do not need an accusative

sign

either;

the

basic lexical shape willserve

fo r

nu clear grammatical pur-

poses.

And,

in all the

other declensions,

so it

does (the traditional Nom-

Voc-Acc lay-out inmanualsisqu ite otiose- only Accexists).Certainly,

Hittite thematic adjectives do sporadically lose their final

-n


15/26

17

3. V + elo

The third strategy of them atism appears at a late stage ofPPIE, over-

lapping

with PIE.

At that epoch one expects increasingly

grammaticaP

tasks marked

minimally

(or not at all): the PIE endingless locative belongs

there.

Suffixing by mid

vowels

now formed

stems

from

event-roots. This

was not, however, to establish

(s

with N) a separate pre-morphological

sub-class.

Some verbs

remained a thematic

throughout (if

defective );

others were

only

partially thematised, and none entirely so. The stative-

resultative perfect was never so marked. There was a corresponding

functional spottiness:

by the time of PIE

formal Opposition

may

mark

no

functional difference (s when aorists are both thematic and athematic;

root and sigmatic aorists are the latter) while conversely clear Opposition

of aspectual values may be obscured by unwelcome likeness of form (cf.

the Sanskrit non-durative past asicat poured and the du rative past

atudat

was

striking ,

both thematic).

Also, there has by now arrived an awareness of the usefulness of a

back/front contrast in mid vow els, mo rphoph onically emp loyable (this con-

trast may have been produ ced by differential placing of word-accent; bu t,

for

the

doubts,

see

Szemerenyi

1990: 125). This tactic

waslong-lived: cf.

English

sing/sang

etc.,

or

the phonologically alike mod ern Ru ssian

elo

con-

trast (see

Itkin

1994,

for

example).

In PIE it

might signal

the

derivation

V -* V ,

where

V may be

intensive

or

frequentative

(so Gk. pher >

phore

etc.)

or be

realised

s

a

deverbative

N

(s

Gk.

nomos nomos

-

nem, Lat. toga - tegoetc.). Anom alies are rife: Greek has

e

in N belos

y

tekos) and

o

in V

lou, oiomai)\

while PIE first person endings in dual

and

plural

are

-wes

or -wos,

-mes

or

-mos.

The

root-syllable o

in the

perfect

is

less

predictable

once

the

other

signs,

like reduplication,

are in

place:

cf. Gk.

leloipa

bu t

pepheuga.

It is

possible that

the odd

Variation

in

e.g. Gk. leg-o-men ,

leg-e-te

arises from

Manczak s rule (1960)

that before

a sonant

post-accentual

PIEebecameo \but the colour contrast is ruined.

(For similar wobbliness

in

apophony, i.e.

eC/0C, note

highly variable

guna/zero

re la t ion between presents

and aorists, or the

u n u s u a l

vrddhi/guna Opposition

for

number

in

proterodynamic

Narten

presents

or Insler aorists (Narten 1968; Insler 1972).)

Vowel suffixation had

obvious euphonic merits

in an

evolving mor-

phology if

consonantal endings needed

to be

attached

to consonant-fmal

roots.Yet it

occurs equally

after

resonants

and

vowels

(s in

Greek con-

tract

verbs). So it must

have some

early more

semantic

role. Was

this

the

marking

of one

polar term

in an old

active System

a

la Klimov

(1977)?

The

difference between e.g.

Gk. -men and bain-o-men

Ve

are going is

then unclear (time reference apart);

and if the

latter means really

we are

actively

moving

(essentially

the view of

Eichner 1975:

77 fn 3, on

limited





16/26

18

evidence),

how

does Homeric e

d ienai made a

move

fit in?

True,

medio-passive perfects

are

athematic

an d

resultative-stative

in

sense,

so

that thematism seems to be the sign of

/+

active/. B ut Renou (1925) was

sure,

from

Vedic, that

/+

active/

was the

unmarked term,

in

both

senses;

and that thematism denoted / +

Stative/

gains some support from the en-

duringuseof that value and the

re-elaboration

of positive indicators (such

s IE

+e(s(c))

- for

Stative-inchoative, identified

by

Watkins,

e.g. 1971:

86-89). But the polar terms are not easy to apply to e.g.Gk.

eimi be

buteimi

(will)

go ,

where

form and function

disagree.

And

subject-activity

verbs

are

thematic

in

some dialects

of

Greek

and not in

others

(s

Attic

agre

capture

versus Aeolic

agremi)

or

differently

in

dialects

of the

same

group (s Attic didsi he gives versus Miletian

didoi,

or Attic histanai

to stand

versus Euboean kathist ffn)

or

even between tenses (cf.Attic

present

tithesi

with imperfect

ethei,

not *etithe). On all this consult Tbcker

1990:

73 fn 83. In

effect,

the

reason behind

e/o

root-suffixation

in only

some verbal forms remains to be found.

For Kurylowicz (1956: 74) its starting point was in aorist formations,

already

so fashioned; but that

simply

shifts

the question elsewhere. The

origin for Watkins

(1969:

65) was themiddle voice; and Hart (1990:

448,

462)

supposes it, at least inClassI

presents,

to come

from

the

middle

3

sg.ending

-o,

although its position within the verbal construct seems to

rule

that out.

In any

case,

to

locate

its

start-point

is not

enough: what

was it meant to do? To that question many answers have been offered;

their variety is illustrated in Figure 1:

name date Suggestion

Thieme

Meillet

Renou

Knobloch

(so Kortlandt 1983)

Risch (so Rix 1986)

Eichner

Schmalstieg (cf.idem

1980,

1986, 1988)

Shields(cf.idem 1992)

9 9

93

93

953

965

975

978

989

partial

marker

of

middle voice ( une

tendance vers la

voix

moyenne )

(1)

component

of

morphs

+

sko/

+ no

(2 )

subjunctive

(from

athematics)

marker

of indeterminate dimension

( eventueP ... independant de toute

categorie

verbale )

marks

that verb has object (so does

nominal thematism)

marker ofsubjunctive (itself source of

indicative)

partial marker

of

continuous action

concordal marker of ergative-type actor

(=

pronoun)

marker of non-present (for

fuller

-yo-)

Note:seebelow on

Valliant (1936, 1937)

and Kurytowicz

(1956).

Figure

1.

Functional

diagnoses of (P)PIE

verbal thematism





17/26

19

It is

relevant that

Plank (1980) has

demonstrated that

confusion be-

tween

the

marking

of

subject

and

object

in a

transitive

System

(or, pre-

sumably,S /P and A in an ergative one) is a relatively tolerable amb iguity.

This ruling could commend the solution of

both

Knobloch and Schmal-

stieg:but

they

are

intended

to

preclude each other. Again,

transitivity has

numerous

diagnostics

and in its

career

has had

many unexpected

Signals

(see

Hopper

- Thompson 1980). In IE, Toc harian was described by inter

(1980) s so using (a)

stem-initial

consonant palatalisation (in the pre-

terite), and (b) a nasal formant (in the present - he notes that all Latin

nasal-infixed verbs are transitive with the solitary exception of the -cum-

bere

dervatives),

and (c)

initial

syllable accent

(in

second

subjunctive

and

causative fo rm ations). Jam ison

(1993)

thoug ht Sanskrit-ay-

on

old

-0-pre-

sents to be transitiviser. These

fmdings

prom ote the notion that

thematism

is an object-sign; by their wide differences they reduce its inevitability.

Indeed, long ago

Kurylowicz

provided (1956: 74 fn 47) the simplest

counter-argument to the Knob loch-Kortlandt position, em ploy ing IE data

where the arguments o f bis opponents rested first on K abardian and then

on Hungarian. He noted that there are plenty of clearly transitive verbs

in (P)IE which stay athematic: he listed many from the gveda atti,

degdhi,

vesti

...

and could have

added

all the Greek

second

wave group,

tithemi, ollttmi

etc.). Presumed

early PIE

ergativity enters here. To the

suspicions aired above one may add disbelief that so

careful

a marking

of

the so

careful

a

marking

of the

S-V-O

(or

A-V-P)

syntagm

should

so

soon fade to a scarcely visible and purely paradigmatic affair. Such fading

is

more serious than the common

loss within

a single category of some

indistinct or arbitrary Opposition.

(In passing, Vaillant

is

omitted from Figure

l

because

his

1936

paper

was not really concerned with verbal thematism

s

such, while his 1937

article sought to relate

Class

I and VI thematic verbs to Hittite

-M

and

-m i conjugations.)

Kurylowicz once suggested (1956: 73) that one function of thematism

s

in

*leik

w

elo-

was to show the subju nctive mood.

This

idea can be

traced

to

Meillet

(1931), and

perhaps arose independently

in

Renou (1932)

s

a development of his eventueP. It was revived and revised by Risch in

1965; he sou ght to establish the pr ior ity of the subjunc tives a mood over

the indicative (cf.

Rix 1986). Within

PPIE this construct may be

called

the

pre-subjunctive - s pre-modaP might mislead, and such demo-

dalised derivations

s

Tocharian

B

imperfect

< PIE

optative

are not

directly relevant, although they do demonstrate possibilities. Now, many

languages

are less

sensitive

to

(for example) time than

to a

fundamental

differentiation of

verbal predications

s between the

actual

and the

con-

tingent. Thus

inHopi the

verbal diatheses

are basic,

habitual (consu etudi-

nal),

and

contingent;

and the

contingent

value

often contextually entails





18/26

20

/+ fu ture/ . Tagalog meshes the parameters of aspect and reality,

s

in

Figure

2:

(Tagalog)

aspect

p u nc tu a l

durat ive

reality

actual

(past) event

(present) event

process

cont ingent

hypothet ical event

possible

[

f u t u r e

process

Figure

2.

The

Latin

ideal

second person subjunctive falls

in

here: cLdelem

haud

ferme midien inuenias uirum (Terence, Andria 460)

you

hardly ever

find

a man

faithful

to a wom an . I t is

therefore quite thinkable that

the e/o

suffix

was an early

marker

of a

deep

but

simple distinction. Delicacy

s

to persons, number and so on came later (cf. Schlerath Rittner 1985,

passim); and the markers were placed fur ther from the root,

s

being

syntactical-inflecting

whereas thematism

was

concerned with assessment

of

th e

event s

degree of reality in the context (and so, more adjacent to

lexical values). Merely to

mention

th e

verb s

action may be a

doubtful

thing; but to assess the eventsnot actual bu t'happenable' seems natural

enough. If anything clear emerges from sociolinguistic enquiry it is that

the schema if p then

q',

or possibly q, given p', is well established even

in

mentally naive speech com mu nities.

One may

comm end again Gonda s

old formula(1956: 69-70) concerning a

'process...

not yet having a higher

degree

of being than mental existence... visualisation ...' (That Gonda

actually contrasts this value with contingency is due to

bis reserving

th e

latter term

for the

precise pragmatic force

of

what

is

said, doubt s

op-

posed

to

fear, etc.)

The next thing was for the marked form to be used to convey the

unmarked

sense.This

sort of linguistic Inflation is awkward but common.

It was aided in this case by the convenience of the linking vowel in con-

sonant-bound sequences

like

*ya n)g+te.

The

sense

of

contingency (ap-

plicable in respect of wanting or urging or supposing the event) abides

s

the

subjunctive;

it s

early date

and

tem poral insensitivity perm it

it s

having s fur ther

affixes

both

old secondary*

endings

and new primary*

ones (with

-/). The

mood value

was so

attached

to

-e/o-, however, that

once thematic forms had faded into simple declaratives they had the con-

tingent

function

re-imposed upon them,

by

repeated thematism:

so, in

Greek,

s

-men

had been

ex tended

to

-o-men,

faded bain-o-men spawned

*bain-o-o-men > bainmen.Some find it hard to accept that these pre-

subjunctives

could

come to have a non-contingent (faded)

role

at all, s





19/26

21

doesHart

(1990:

446-447)

on the ground

that e.g.

the

future

is not em-

ployable in apresent,

non-modal,

sense whereasthe converse is

f requent ,

s inEng./ am

leaving

tomorrow).But the

future

is soused, being poised

between tenseand mood; so acharacter in Terence

(Phormio

801) defends

a

previous

Statement by sayingsie erit\non temeredico it

is

so; Fm sure

of

it ; and

when Seneca declares that glory alwaysaccompanies courage

he uses comitabitur

Epi.

Mor. 79.13).There is an extra implicature that

corroboration is still to seek;but then the present used of a

future

event

also carries

an

implicature, that

the

process

has

sgood sbegun.

The

pre-subjunctive

split

into sub-categories

of

which future-marking

w as

only

one (to

invert

the

sequence proposed

in

Hahn

1953).

One

cannot

imagine

that the thematic

form

was the original, unlessby supposingGk.

i-men kei-tai

or

Skt. as-ti, se-te

to

have been produced

by

subtraction.

Hencesome additional task must have been imposed

on the

basic verb,

and yet the new

form assigned

to

that task

w as

able

to

lose

it s

force

by

attrition

or Inflation. (So Trkish verbal

affix

-mi - loses it s

inferential

value inwritten, third person, past tense constructs;seeLewis 1967: 122,

162versus 101, 140.)

It is harder to decide which of two

ultimately

contrasting systemic

terms is

prior .

The

formal

origin and the system s inventionmay be at

variance. Within the IE modal System, selsewhere, the athematic shape

is in

place

first.

While

it

represents

the

indicative non-contingent) value,

historical

an d

systemic priority

are

congruent. Even when,

in

some verbs,

the thematic shape has been misapplied so

s

to convey the unmarked

term,

the

thematism

i s

repeated

to

make

a

physical sign

of the

plus term;

so

that

the

indicative

form is

still

th e

earlier

of the

two.

Yet the

value

indicative

in a

mood-system becomes

the

ground-term only after

the

emergence of a thematic shapewith a marked modal value;so, in a sense,

the indicative does derive

from

the subjunctive. The nearest parallel in

outer history which comes to mind is in the

evolving

collegiate structure

of

the

University

of

Durham founded1832).From 1833

to

1845

the

entire

body of members were the university. In 1846, with the founding of Hat-

field Hall (later College), the prior group

only

then became the senior

College University College)

in the new

dispensation.)

4.This

paper

1

has made several interlinked suggestions. One is that a

periodwe may call PPIEw as characterised by a series of cognitive

leaps.

These

were increasingly sophisticated

and

abstract;

and

they ended

in a

morphological overlap

with

the organised paradigmatic marking,in PIE,

ofconventionalised categories.Another is that,

within

an era of imprecise

but

permansive

pre-morphology,

tworevelations

co-occurred.

The first

1. Of which an earlier

version

w as given at the PercevalMaitlandLaurenceseminar

in Cambridge, 25 May 1994.





20/26

22

was a philosophical grasp of the diffe renc e between entity and predication;

the

second

was a phonological appreciation of the balanced nature of

front

and back vocalism, and of its capacity of signalling that items are

related but opposed. (This use of metaphony went along with an equally

patchy reliance on thegrades of apoph ony to pe rform slightly mo re reg-

ularised tasks.) This picture ofhistorical stages issummarised inFigure3:

stages ofPPIE

1.

early -*

2. middle

-

3.

late

-

(post-Anatolian?)

whatis to b e

signalled

expostulation

secondary

definition

contigency

of

event

onwhat

element

N

= V

N

V

with

wha t

vowel

W

[o]

[e/o]

Figure 3.

The late overlap withPIE when it had lost the Anatolian group of

lan-

guages

(which show no sign of a subjunctive) is balanced by an early

possible overlap with an epoch of nostratic adherence, even with a quite

embryonicspeech stage.To face this latter n otion is to reject the im itation

of

reconstruction

to

(s

K urylowicz

(1964:

58)

proposed)

'stages

bordering

the historical reality*. We should pursue thematism rather

further

back

than that,

and

recognise

it

s

one

process

of

shaping which

had

successive

varieties of form and ofm eaning.To say so is simplyto put two and two

together;to be sure that the semantic details

proposed

above arecorrect

may

be tomaketheanswerfive. But

Indo-European ists

shouldnot neglect

this area ofenquiry, and can no doubt get the sum right in the end.

Neville Collinge

31

StansgateAv

CAMBRIDGE

CB2 2QZ

UNITED K I N G D O M

REFERENCES

Anderson, S.R.

1977 On mechanisms by which languages become ergative , in: C.N. Li (ed.),

317-363.

Beeks, R.S.R

1985 T he origfns of the Indo European nominal inflection. Innsbruck: Innsb. Bei-

trge

zur

Sprachwissenschaft

46.

Benveniste,E.

1973 Indo European languageand

society.

[Iranslationby E. Palmer of

(1969)

Le

vocabularie des

institutions indoeurop

ens.]London: Faber &

Faber.





21/26

23

Brosman, P.W.Jr.

1979 The Hitt ite neu ter

-stems ,KZ 93: 54- 63.

1984 The

IE

cognates

of the

Hit t i teai

and

au

stems ,

JIES

12:

345-365.

1994 The PIE

r/i/-, /uu

and

f^

-sterns , Folia

Linguistica

Historica XV: 3-19.

Brugmann,

K. H. Osthoff

1880 Morphologishe

Untersuchungen.

Vol.3. Leipzig: THibner.

Bubenik,

V.

1993

Mo rphological and

syntactic change

in late

Middle

Indo-Aryan ,

JIES

21 :

259-281.

Burrow,

T .

1955 Th e

Sanskrit

language. London: Faber

&

Faber.

Chomsky, A.N.

1982 Lectures

on

govemment

and

binding.

Dordrecht:

Foris.

1995 Bare phrasestructure , in: G. Webelhuth(ed.),385-439.

Cohen, G.L.

1988

Etymology and linguistic

principles.

(2vols.)Rolla, MO : Universityof

Missouri.

Cole,

P.

J.M. Sadock (eds.)

1977 Syntax an d

Sematics

8: Grammatical

relations.

New York:

Academic

Press.

Collinge, N.E.

1985 Th e laws of Indo European. A msterdam P hiladelph ia: Benjamins.

1993 Review

of

Plank 1991.

Studies

in

Language 17:

264-269.

Cresswell, M.L.

1994 Language in the

world.

Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press.

Dixon,

R.M.W. (ed.)

1976

Grammatical categories

in

Australianlanguages.

Canberra:Australien Institute

of

Aboriginal Studies.

Dunkel, G.E.

1992

Two old

problems inGreek: and5 \ Glotta 70: 197-

223.

Eichner, H.

1975 Die Vorgeschichte

des

hettitischen Verbalsystems ,

in: H.

Rix(ed.), 71-104.

Etter, A. (ed.)

1986

O o pe ro si .

(Fs.

Risch.)

Berlin

New

York:

\\folter

de

Gruyter.

Fillmore, CJ.

1977 The case forcase

reopened ,

in: P.Cole J.M. Sadock (eds.),59-81.

Fisiak, J. (ed.)

1980 Historical morpho logy. The Hague: Mouton.

Gamkrelidze, TV. V.V. Ivanov

1984 Indoevropejskij jazyk i indOeiropeicy.

(2

vols.)

Tbilisi:

Tbilisi State University.

[Translated

by J.

Nichols

(1995) s

Indo European

and the

Indo Europeans

(Trends in Ling uistic s 80.) Berlin New York: Mouton de

Gruyter.]

Garett, A.

1990 The origin

of NP

split ergativity ,Language

66:

261-296.

Georgiev, V.l.

1984 Die drei Hauptperioden

des

indoeurop ischen ,

D iachronica 1:65-87.

Gonda,J.

1956 Th e

character

of the Indo European moods.

Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.





22/26

24

Hahn,E.A.

1953 Subjunctive

an d Optative:

Their origin s

futures.

New York: American Philo-

logical Association.

Hart, G.R.

1988

Anatolian

evidence

and the

origins

of the Indo-European medio-passive ,

BS OAS 51:

69-95.

1990 'Class l present', subjunctiveand m iddle voice in Indo-European , BS OAS

53: 446-468.

Heesterman,J.C. G.H. Schokker VI. Su bra ma n ia m(eds.)

1968 Pratidnam. (Fs. Kuiper.)The Hague:

Mouton.

Heinz,A M. Karas*

(eds.)

1965

Symbolae linguisticae.

(Fs.

Kurytowicz.) Wroclaw Warszawa

Krakow:

Polska Akademie Nauk.

Hoffman,

K.

1967 Der Injunktiv im

Veda.

Heidelberg: Winter.

Hopper,PJ. S.A. Thompson

1980

Transitivity

in g ra mma rand discourse ,

Language

56 :251-299.

Insler,S.

1972 On proterodynamicroot present inflection ,

M SS

30:55-64. (Butsee also

Language

48(1972): 557.)

Itkin, I.B.

1994 Jee raz o Ceredovanij e/ v sovremennom russkom jazyke , V Ja 1994. 1:

126-133.

Jamison,

S.

1983

Function and

form

in the

-aya-

formations of the Rig

veda

an d

Atharva Veda.

Gttingen:

KZ

Ergnzungsheft

31.

Jasanoff, J.

1978 S tative and middle in Indo-European. Innsbruck: In stitu t fr Sprachwissen-

schaft

der Universitt Innsbruck.

Kammenhuber , A .

1985 Zu m M od us i n j u n k t i v u nd z u m Dre i -genu s -Sy s tem im U r indoger -

manischen ,

in: U.

Pieper

G.

Stickel

(eds.),435-466.

Klimov,

G.A.

1977

Tipologija jazykov aktivnogo

stroja.

Moskva:

AN SSSR.

Knobloch,

J.

1953

La

voyelle themat ique

-e/o-:

serait-elle

un

indice d'objet indoeuropen? ,

Lingua3: 407-420.

Kortlandt, F.

1983

Proto-Indo-European

verbal

syntax , JIES 11:

307-324.

Kurytowicz,J.

1956

L apoph on ie en

indO-europoen.

Wroctaw:

Polska

Akademia

N a u k .

1964

The

inflectional categories

of

Indo-European. Heidelberg: Winter.

Lehman, W.P.

1976 From topic

to

subject

in

Indo-European ,

in:

C.N.

Li

(ed.),445-456.

Lewis, G.L.

1967 Turkish g rammar. Oxford: Clarendon

Press.

Li,

C.N. (ed.)

1976

Subject

and

topic. New

York: Academic

Press.





23/26

25

1977 Mechanisms

of

syntactic change.Austin,

TX:

University of TexasPress.

Mallinson,

G. BJ.

Blake

1981

Language typology.

Amsterdam

New

York

Oxford:

North

Holland.

Manczak,W .

1960

Origine de Tapophonie e/o en

indo-europen ,

Lingua 9:277-287.

Matisoff, J.A.

1990

On

megalocomparison ,

Landtage 66:106-120.

Matsumoto, K.

1993

Problem

of ergativity in Indo-European ,JIES 21:303-329.

McLendon, S.

1978 Ergativity,

case,

and

transitivity

in

Eastern Porno ,U L

44:

1-9.

Meillet,

A.

1925 Review of Fs. Wackernagel (1923).

BSL

25: 46-49.

1931

Caractere

s^condaire

du

type

thomat ique

indo-europe en ,

BSL 32:

193-203.

M hlestein,H E. Risch (eds.)

1979

Colloguium

Mycenaeum. Neuchatel: Universite* de Neuchatel.

Nar ten ,J.

1968 Zum

'proterodynamischen' Wurzelpr sens , in:

J.C.

Heesterman

et al.

(eds.), 9-19.

Nichols, J.

1986 Head-marking

and

dependent -marking grammar ,Language

62:56-119.

Pedersen, H.

1907

Neues

und nachtr gliches , KZ40:129-217.

1924 [1962J Sprogsvidenskaben i

det

nittende

Aarhundrede:

metoder og

resultater.Copen-

hagen: G yldendalske Boghan del. [Translation by J.W . Spargo, The

discovery

of

language.

Bloomin gton, In.: In dian a UniversityPress.]

1933 Zur

Frage

nach

der

Urverwandtschaft

des

indoeurop

ischer mit dem

ugro-

fionischen , Mem. Soc. Finno-Ougrienne

67:

308-326.

Pieper,

U G. Stickel(eds.)

1985 Studia

linguistica diachronica

et

synchronica.

Berlin: Walter

de

Gruyter.

Plank, F.

1980 Enconding grammat ica l relations: Acceptable and unacceptable non-dis-

tinctness ,

in: J. Fisiak

(ed.),289-325.

1991

Paradigms:The economyof inflection.

Berlin

New

York: Mouton

de

Gruy-

ter.

Plank,F. (ed.)

1979

Ergativity. New

York: Academic

Press.

,E.G.

1994 Reviewof Cohen

1988-91.

JIES 22:195-196.

Puhvel,J.

(ed.)

1969 Substance and

structure

of language.Berkeley

Los Angeles:

University

of

California Press.

Renou,L.

1925 Le type vedique

tudati .

Mtlanges Vendryes. Paris: Champion,309-316.

1932

Aproposdu

subjonctifvedique ,

BSL 33:

5-30.

Risch,

E.

1965 Zum Problem

de r

thematischen

Konjugation ,

in :A.

Heinz

M .

Karas*

(eds.):

232-242.

(Also

inKleine Schriften

(1981):

701-709.)





24/26

26

Rix,

H.

1986

Zur Entstehung des indogemianishen Modussystems.

Innsbruck: Innsbrucker

Institut f r Sprachwissenschaft.

1988 The

Proto-Indo-European

middle: Content , forms

an d

origin ,MS S 49:101-

119.

Rix, H. (ed.)

1975 Flexion

un d

Wonbildung. (Vth Fachtagungde r indogermanischen Gesells-

chaft.) Wiesbaden: Reichert.

Schlerath, B . V. Riltne r

(eds.)

1985

GrammatischeKategorien:Funktionund Geschichte.

Wiesbaden: Reichert. (=

Vllth Fachtagungde r indogermanischen Gesellschaft.)

Schmalstieg,

WR.

1978 The m iddle

voice re-visited ,

Folia

Linguistica

12:

349-366.

1980 Indo-European linguistics.U niversity Park PA: Pennsylvania State University

Press.

1986 The ergative

function

of the Proto-indo-European

genitive ,

(Remarks on

Kortlandt 1983.)

JIES

14:

161-172.

1988 The ergative syntax

of the

Indo-European middle

aorist ,Lingua

Posnanien-

sis31:11-22.

Schmidt,K.H.

1986 Zu r Vo rgesch ichte

des

prdikat iven Syntagmas

in

indogermanischen ,

in :

A.

Etter (ed.),90-103.

Shields,

K.C. Jr.

1989 The

origins

of the thematic vowel , IF 94: 7- 20.

1992

A history of Indo-European

verb mor

before pie_ motives for thematism.pdf

Documents