{"title":"Germanic *ƀra (PIE *pro) as ditropic clitic and the etymology of *ƀrenga-, *ƀrūka- and *ƀraiđ̯a-","authors":"D. Kölligan","doi":"10.1515/if-2019-0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/if-2019-0004","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract It is argued that the Germanic forms *ƀrenga- ‘bring’, *ƀrūka- ‘use, enjoy’ and *ƀrai̯đa- ‘broad’ contain an element *ƀra which is the “ditropic” variant of Gmc. *fra < PIE *pro. It arose by Verner’s Law when *fra was enclitic and formed a phonological word with a preceding lexeme, while being syntactically and semantically oriented towards its host on the right. The same behavior may be seen in Germanic *ham- and *ǥa- as continuants of PIE *kom.","PeriodicalId":13385,"journal":{"name":"Indogermanische Forschungen","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2019-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/if-2019-0004","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46742927","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Weak adjectives need not be definite","authors":"Artūras Ratkus","doi":"10.1515/IF-2018-0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/IF-2018-0002","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In Gothic and, more generally, early Germanic, adjectives can be declined for gender, number, case and determination. The latter category refers to a morphologically realised distinction (opposition) of indefiniteness and definiteness, traditionally presented in terms of the strong (indefinite) and weak (definite) types of inflection: cf. strong ubils‘evil’ vs. weak sa ubila‘the evil (one)’. The definite (weak) form of the adjective is conventionally said to be triggered by the definite determiner (pronoun) that precedes it. By examining the evidence of variation between determined and undetermined weak forms of adjectives in the Gothic Bible, I argue that the weak inflection performs a broader range of functions than conventionally assumed. In particular, I show that the weak form of the adjective is indefinite in the presence of a classifying or identifying feature. However, it accompanies a D-word projected from a noun (which may be null) bearing a definite feature. In other words, the weak inflection is not an autonomous carrier of definiteness and is definite only by association with the determiner. The evidence of variation between Lithuanian short (indefinite) and long (definite) forms of adjectives provides compelling support for this presentation of the Gothic facts.","PeriodicalId":13385,"journal":{"name":"Indogermanische Forschungen","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2018-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/IF-2018-0002","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46857629","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Between syntax and semantics","authors":"Dan Petit","doi":"10.1515/if-2018-0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/if-2018-0008","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The East Baltic conditional mood (e.g. Old Lithuanian duotumbiau‘I would give’) must certainly represent a recent innovation of this branch of Indo- European, but its origin raises considerable problems. At first glance it derives from a periphrasis combining the inherited supine (e.g. *duotun‘giving’) and an auxiliary *bi-of obscure origin, probably an optative or an indicative preterite of *bhuH-‘to be’. Semantically, this periphrastic structure is difficult to account for, especially if one recalls that the supine is limited to the expression of finality after verbs of motion, which cannot have been the case with an auxiliary ‘to be’. In addition, the absence of an auxiliary in the third person in Lithuanian (e.g. duotų ‘he/they would give’) and throughout the paradigm in Latvian (e.g. es, tu, viņšduotu‘I, you, he would give’, etc.) requires an explanation. In this paper I try to give a full account of the prehistory of the East Baltic conditional mood, relying on Stang’s analysis but with a more precise scenario to explain some syntactic and semantic aspects which have not yet received the attention they deserve.","PeriodicalId":13385,"journal":{"name":"Indogermanische Forschungen","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2018-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/if-2018-0008","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47012839","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Interrogative stems in Hittite and Tocharian","authors":"M. Peyrot","doi":"10.1515/IF-2018-0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/IF-2018-0003","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Hittite and Tocharian share an interrogative pronominal stem in m-next to the well known Proto-Indo-European interrogative *kʷi-, *kʷe-, *kʷo-. In Tocharian, the m-interrogative is especially frequent as a formative element in several interrogative, relative and indefinite stems. In this paper, these stems are investigated in detail, and it is argued that the Tocharian A interrogative stem ā-posited by Sieg, Siegling & Schulze in their Tocharische Grammatikis a ghost. Although the reconstruction of the m-interrogative for the oldest stage of Proto-Indo-European is beyond any doubt, it is difficult to use this Anatolian-Tocharian isogloss as an argument for the phylogenetic structure of the Indo-European family tree since in the other branches the m-interrogative may have been lost independently.","PeriodicalId":13385,"journal":{"name":"Indogermanische Forschungen","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2018-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/IF-2018-0003","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44396470","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"On the origin of the absolute vs. conjunct opposition in Insular Celtic","authors":"Marco Budassi, E. Roma","doi":"10.1515/IF-2018-0011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/IF-2018-0011","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Despite more than a century of research, the origin of the Insular Celtic double system of verbal inflection is still debated. In this paper, we defend the thesis that the set of absolute endings originated by the agglutination of a subject clitic to the verb form. This clitic marked the declarative (vs. relative) use of verbs, since its distribution was complementary to that of the relative marker *yo. The present indicative as well as the preterite (in both the absolute and conjunct inflection) of one strong verb (berid‘bring’) and one weak verb (lécid‘leave’) are reconstructed according to this theory. For compound verb forms, the clitic ~ *yoalternation can be posited as well. The cases in which the distribution of initial mutations on the verb stem after preverbs does not follow the diachronic phonological rules of Old Irish (that is, there is no lenition after preverbs originally ending in a vowel) are accounted for from a synchronic standpoint. This “anomalous” behaviour can be explained by positing that a functionally relevant (morphological) system of mutations had replaced the previous phonology-based system.","PeriodicalId":13385,"journal":{"name":"Indogermanische Forschungen","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2018-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/IF-2018-0011","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46677911","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Grammaticalization of the Lithuanian comparative -jau(s)","authors":"Norbert Ostrowski","doi":"10.1515/if-2018-0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/if-2018-0010","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract When analysing Old Lithuanian texts from the 16th and the first half of the 17th century, one can notice that comparatives with the -jaussuffix tend to appear in comparative constructions with connectives containing negation, e.g. Bet eschdaugiaus dirbau / neig kursai isch yũ‘but I laboured more abundantly than they all’ (VEE 102: 16-17; 1 Corinthians 15: 10). This is the “particle comparative” in Stassen’s terms (1985; 2001). On the other hand, authors avoided comparatives with the -jaus suffix in other types of comparative constructions (with the preposition užand the genitive). Philological and etymological analysis of neg(i)and nei(gi)‘than’ shows that these connectives developed out of former sentence negations. This sheds some light on the syntactic environment in which the grammaticalization of the comparative suffix -jausoccurred. The Lithuanian comparative suffix -jaũ (OLith. -jau-s, e.g. geriaus‘better’) goes back to the postposed focus particle -jaũ, which functions as a marker of emphatic assertion of identity (König 1991). The primary contrastive function of the ‑jau-ssuffix can be compared to Ancient Greek -τερος (Sanskrit -taraḥ) in such usages as δεξίτερος ‘right(-hand)’. The grammaticalization of the focus marker jau(s)has occurred in sentences consisting of juxtaposed and contrasted clauses - the “conjoined comparative” in Stassen’s terms (1985: 38, 44), and in these sentences, -jausfilled the role of pragmatic marker and focalizer, emphasizing one of two compared, oppositional items.","PeriodicalId":13385,"journal":{"name":"Indogermanische Forschungen","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2018-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/if-2018-0010","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46779145","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Zur Analyse von νῦν bei Homer","authors":"Luz Conti","doi":"10.1515/IF-2018-0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/IF-2018-0004","url":null,"abstract":"Zusammenfassung In Homer, νῦν generally functions as an adverb referring to the present or the immediate future of the speaker. Apart from this use as a temporal adverb, νῦν has also developed a use as a discourse marker: it functions as a marker of discourse topic shift and as an adversative particle; besides these two values, νῦν also functions, as we will try to demonstrate, as an illustrative particle. The line between the use of νῦν as a temporal adverb or a discourse marker is blurred, as could be expected, but contexts in which the verb expresses past states of affairs totally exclude an interpretation of νῦν as a temporal adverb. This paper aims at determining the factors that have triggered the development of νῦν as a discourse marker. It will also describe the conditions that allow the use of νῦν in the description of states of affairs that took place in a distant past.","PeriodicalId":13385,"journal":{"name":"Indogermanische Forschungen","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2018-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/IF-2018-0004","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49182689","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}