Proto-Indo-European Syntax
Winfred P. Lehmann
4. Verbal Modifiers
4.1. On Elements Introduced through the Q Component.
4.1.1. Introduction.
The grammar proposed in Chapter 1 generates elements, like interrogation and negation, which relate to the entire sentence, by means of the Q constituent of the rule Σ → Q Prop. Although such elements have been discussed in earlier theoretical works, they have not been completely and unambiguously identified. An earlier statement, with some bibliographical review was given by Otto Jespersen (1924: 301-337). Theoretical statements like those of Jespersen, which are based largely on logical analysis with reference to European languages, will have to be augmented by investigations of the elements concerned in a broad span of languages (Hope 1972, Lehmann 1973a) and by closer analysis of well-known languages (Calbert 1971; Pflueger, Saad, and Lehmann, forthcoming). But already some elements have been hierarchically related as well as clearly identified. For the surface expression in many consistent VSO languages and (S)OV languages reflects with remarkable exactness the hierarchical structure of Q elements in surface features associated with the verb.
Before examining the verbal phrase of PIE we will review briefly the central Q features which we expect to find in languages. We will also note syntactic features which are introduced in the P constituent and, like Q features, often attached to verbs. And since PIE was OV in structure, we will examine briefly the verbal system of characteristic OV languages; for we may expect these to contribute to our understanding of the verbal system of PIE.
4.1.2. Some Characteristics of OV Verbal Systems.
As we have noted in Chapter 1, verbal inflection of OV languages is accomplished by means of suffixation. Moreover, OV languages are generally agglutinative (Lehmann 1973a). To understand the PIE verbal system it is also highly important to be aware of the OV characteristic that a verb form may have a minimal suffix, as well as a group of suffixes conveying a complex verbal meaning. We illustrate this characteristic by means of examples from Turkish.
In Turkish a form for stating generally valid facts is expressed with a suffix, (VOWEL)r, followed by deictic suffixes indicating person and number. This form contrasts with one which indicates a momentary action, The forms of these two inflections, which are also called Present I and Present II, made from the root
| General Action | Momentary Action | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 sg. | gelirim ‘I come’ | geliyorum ‘I am coming’ | ||
| 2 sg. | gelirsin | geliyorsun | ||
| 3 sg. | gelir | geliyor | ||
| 1 pl. | geliriz | geliyoruz | ||
| 2 pl. | gelirsiniz | geliyorsunuz | ||
| 3 pl. | gelirler | geliyorlar |
Besides the agglutinative characteristics illustrated by these forms, Turkish exhibits another frequent characteristic of OV languages: vowel harmony. In its eight-vowel system a suffix like im selects one of the four high vowels in accordance with the preceding vowel; a suffix like ler selects either the front variant e or the back a. Some elements, like the yor of the suffix indicating momentary action, however, are themselves not affected by vowel harmony. The eight-vowel system is as follows:
| i | ü | ı | u | |||
| e | ö | a | o |
In the illustrations of further verb forms only the first singular and the, third singular will be given.
The interrogative (affix mi, mu) of the momentary inflection:
1 sg. geliyormuyum ‘Am I coming?’ 3 sg. geliyormu
The negative (affix mi):
1 sg. gelmiyorum ‘I am not coming.’ 3 sg. gelmiyor
The interrogative of the negative:
1 sg. gelmiyormuyum ‘Am I not coming?’ 3 sg. gelmiyormu
The optative (affix e) of gelmek, for the first person singular:
Simple Optative Interrogative Negative geleyim ‘I may come.’ geleyimmi gelmeyim
The necessitative (affix meli) of gelmek for the first person singular:
Simple Necessitative Interrogative Negative gelmeliyim ‘I must come.’ gelmelimiyim gelmemeliyim
These selected forms illustrate the structure of an OV verb system. Suffixes are appended one to another to convey compound meanings. But the compound suffixes are not mandatory. Rather, a simple form may consist only of a stem, such as
Injunctive forms consist only of the verbal stem plus a suffic indicating person. Illustrations by means of forms which occur in Vedic texts are given for the root
| Present | Aorist | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 sg. | —— | sthām | ||
| 2 sg. | tiṣṭhaḥ | sthāḥ (ḥ < s) | ||
| 3 sg. | tiṣṭhat | sthāt |
For further details see Karl Hoffmann, who lists the occurrences of injunctives and discusses their meaning in one of the most impressive publications among recent works on IE (1967).
As Panini recognized, the injunctive is not a distinct inflection comparable with the present indicative, optative, imperative, and so on of Vedic. Rather, injunctive forms are survivals of the PIE verb system at a time when its mode of formation resembled that of systems like that of Turkish.
Recent analysis has provided further insights into the earlier system. The verb endings in the inflections of the dialects and of late PIE are composites, as Indo-Europeanists have held for more than a century. After the authoritative statement by Rudolf Thurneysen (1885), it has been generally agreed that the primary endings mi, si, ti are composed of the personal endings m, s, t found in the Vedic injunctives, plus a suffix i (see Watkins 1969:45-46 for details). The discovery of Hittite, with its further such suffixes, and our greater understanding of PIE phonology, which resulted largely from the laryngeal theory, provided additional credence for the reconstruction of the earlier forms of IE verbal endings. I illustrate these by means of the first-person singular endings of the middle in Indo-Iranian; the data are taken from Warren Cowgill (1968:24-31).
On the basis of the cited forms, the Proto-Indo-Iranian endings for the first singular may be reconstructed as follows:
| Athematic | Thematic | Vedic Athematic | Thematic | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aorist indicative (secondary) | *-i | *-ai | náṃśi | vóce | ||||
| Present indicative (primary) | *-ai | *-ai | yuñjé | bháre | ||||
| Subjunctive | *-āi | *-āi | stávai | pṛcchai | ||||
| Optative | *-īya | *-aiya | bhakṣīyá | voceya |
By comparing endings in other dialects and by internal analysis of the Indo-Iranian endings, the PIE form of the optative ending may be reconstructed with the suffixes:
| *-yeʔ- | + | x | + | o |
| optative | first-person | middle | ||
| suffix | suffix | suffix |
The subjunctive ending is also a composite of three suffixes, followed by the primary suffix i/y:
| o | + | x | + | o | + | i(y) |
| subjunctive | first-person | middle | primary | |||
| suffix | suffix | suffix | suffix |
Such reconstructions, which are based on the work of many Indo-Europeanists who have examined the forms solely on the basis of morphological evidence in the dialects, illustrate that the endings found in late PIE and the dialects are reflexes of sequences of suffixes similar to those in Turkish and in other OV languages.
In the early PIE sequence of verbal suffixes we distinguish suffixes for the deictic category of person and for number. We also distinguish suffixes for the Q categories. These suffixes and the inflections in which they are used have been given traditional labels in IE grammars, such as middle, optative, and subjunctive. It is one of the obligations of a syntactic analysis of PIE to describe the functions of the suffixes so labeled in accordance with a long and idiosyncratic tradition and to determine the categories in accordance with general linguistic theory. Before we do so, however, we will note an important difference between the verb system of OV languages like early PIE and that of languages like Greek, Sanskrit, and the other dialects, for which we posit compound endings.
In the verbal system of OV languages, each affix is to be regarded as an independent segment which may or may not be employed in a given sentence. It would therefore be misleading to equate Vedic
Moreover, it would also be misleading to equate the meaning of the Vedic optative suffix with that of the Turkish equivalent. For the Vedic optative endings are composites with compound meanings that contrast as composites with other endings of the Vedic verb, such as the subjunctive, imperative, and indicative. On the other hand, each of the Turkish suffixes adds a distinct meaning to the verb form, as we may illustrate with an example of the Turkish potential
| 1. | Insan | bunu | bilmiyebilir |
| person | this | know-not-potential-suffix |
The sentence means: ‘It is possible that a person doesn't know this’ (Jansky 1954:128). If the suffixes formed a composite unit with a compound meaning like the Vedic endings, we might expect the meaning ‘It is not possible that a person should know this.’ For, in the composite endings of PIE, one element affects other elements as well as the stem. The composite structure and the compound meanings of IE verb endings have had a profound effect on the syntax of late PIE and the dialects. For, in contrast with Turkish and many other languages, one element–person–has come to dominate other elements and also the entire clause, including complements. Before we note the effects of this dominance of person in the late PIE verb, we will review the major Q elements.
4.1.3. On the Identification of Q Elements.
A major problem in the identification of Q elements results from their variety of expression in language. This surface expression may be made in the inflectional system of a language, in the derivational system, in the lexical system, or by means of suprasegmental morphemes. The variety of expression has led to problems in analysis and terminology, as we may note from discussions of aspect.
When we consider the opposition between imperfective and perfective action, we find that Russian is a language in which the contrast is indicated by means of derivational processes in the verbal system, as in:
| Imperfective | smotret′ | ‘see’ |
|---|---|---|
| Perfective | posmotret′ | ‘look’ |
In English the contrast between these two categories is expressed lexically, as the glosses ‘see’ and ‘look’ may indicate. In Homeric Greek the contrast was indicated by means of inflection, with the present indicating imperfective aspect and the aorist indicating perfective aspect.
As another example we may cite the feature Caus., which in Arabic is indicated by inflectional processes in the verbal system. As the following examples may indicate, one of the causative conjugations also carries the feature Vol. Using the symbols F, M, L for the first, middle, and last consonants of the typical trisyllabic root, we may illustrate the inflectional modifications as follows:
| i | ||
| FaM | a | La (simple form), e.g., hasuna ‘be good’ |
| u |
| FaMMaLa (volitional, causative), e.g., darrasa ‘teach, instruct’ |
| ʔaFMaLa (unintentional agency), e.g., ʔajlasa ‘cause to sit down’ |
In English, on the other hand, the causative feature is expressed in a few nonproductive derivational pairs, such as set versus sit, lay versus lie. But generally it is expressed by means of phrases, such as those in He made her sit down; He had the eggs put in the basket.
Discussions of the features concerned and of the means of expressing them abound in earlier work on language as well as in recent studies. Moreover, some of the features concerned have attracted the interest of logicians and have led to intensive attention to modal logic. This is not the place to comment on the current state of modal logic, which by one definition “has to do with the structure of statements which are in grammatical moods other than the indicative” (Snyder 1971:2). This definition is obviously based on the perspective of IE languages. Clearly a great deal of work will be necessary on the “modal” elements of language, by linguists as well as logicians. Instead of commenting directly on such work, at this point I am merely interested in coming to terms with some of the earlier linguistic discussions.
The Q features labeled Perf. and Imperf. are among those most thoroughly studied by linguists. When such features are expressed in the inflectional system, they have been referred to as aspect. When, on the other hand, they are expressed lexically, they have been referred to as mode of action, Aktionsart. The complexities of the features, coupled with the varying possibilities of expression, make their treatment one of the most difficult problems in the study of language, even without such terminological complications, which are based on surface phenomena. For, if we regard only the simplest portion of the problem, that is, the means of expression, we find that even a language like Russian with well-developed means for indicating aspect, also makes the distinction lexically, as in the contrast between:
| Imperfective | govorit′ | ‘say’ |
|---|---|---|
| Perfective | skazat′ | ‘tell’ |
Moreover, any verbal prefix affects the aspectual meaning in Russian and in earlier languages with systematic means of expression for aspect, such as Homeric Greek and Gothic. Discussions of the problems involved have been not only voluminous but also frequently at variance with one another.
For improved understanding of aspect and other Q elements, we must deal with them as underlying elements rather than with their surface means of expression. The work in modal logic is promising, because logic is essentially concerned with underlying elements. As one important insight, modal logicians have recognized that deictic categories like tense differ from other modalities, that, in the words of D. Paul Snyder, “time reference of statements ... seems not to be a modal matter at all” (1971: 7). For Snyder, “modal matters” include “alethic modality” (possibility, necessity, entailment, compatibility), “deontic modality” (obligation, permission), “epistemic modality” (knowledge, belief), and “intentional modality” (wishes, hopes, desires, intentions). These are only some of the Q features, notably those expressed by the “moods” of IE languages.
The recent attention to modalities in linguistic works has suffered from excessive preoccupation with English, as indicated by the relating of modalities to English function words: be, have, cause to, put, and so on. It has also suffered from the awkwardness resulting when these are regarded as individual sentences in a P marker. For besides requiring many intricate reduction processes, such as equivalent-NP deletion, the P markers must then equate the modality elements with the sentence structures of a given language. The treatment of modality features, or Q elements, will be greatly advanced by their study in a wide range of languages. It will profit further from the study of their analysis in earlier linguists' works, such as that of Sibawayyi. While such materials will be referred to here, the chief basis for further illumination of the Q features in PIE will come from an analysis of their roles in successive periods of the various early IE languages.
Before examining the individual Q features we may note briefly the inflectional forms for them in Vedic Sanskrit. In part to illustrate the richness of its inflectional system, the forms are limited to those of one root,
The modality in which the speaker is concerned with expressing a fact (declarative; epistemic) is marked by the indicative, yajati. The unmarked form is the injunctive, yajanta. For interrogative and negative modality, syntactic devices other than inflection are used.
For reflexive modality the middle is used, yajate. The moods other than the indicative express deontic, alethic, and intentional modalities. The imperative indicates the necessitative, yaja, supplemented in the first and third persons by the subjunctive, yajāti. The optative expresses the volitional, yajet. Further, a secondary conjugation has been developed in Sanskrit to express the intentional modality, the desiderative, iyakṣasi.
Aspects are expressed by the perfect, īje, to indicate perfective modality, as opposed to the imperfective indicated by the present system. The aorist, ayāt, conveys the further meaning of momentary, perfective aspect.
Inflections for the tenses may be mentioned here for the sake of completeness, though as mentioned above these are not included under modalities: imperfect ayajat and future yakṣyasi.
For additional modalities the forms are taken from William D. Whitney (1885): causative yājayati, intensive
Among the other Indo-European dialects the inflectional forms for indicating modalities are fewer, as is well known. Greek is closest to Sanskrit in this respect. In the other dialects many of the modalities are expressed by means of lexical items, as are interrogation and negation even in Vedic, or by derivation, as is aspect in Slavic. The use of such devices is found also in the Prakrits, that is, that stage of Indic which is chronologically parallel with the forms we have from many of the other IE dialects. For early stages of PIE, however, inflectional elements were the primary elements expressing modality, as we note in the following sections.
4.1.4. The Declarative (Dec.), Interrogative (Int.), and Negative (Neg.) Qualifiers.
When using the Q element Dec., the speaker is primarily concerned with expressing a fact, without wishing “to exert an influence on the will of his hearer directly through his utterance” (Jespersen 1924: 302). Its surface indication is frequently suprasegmental, as in English, with the intonation contour /(2) 3 1 #/ in contrast with the nonfactual /(2) 3 3 ||/.
| 2. | 2He is 3sleeping1 # | vs. | 2He is 3sleeping3 || |
In some languages, however, such as the VSO Squamish with č and the OV Lisu with a̪, Dec. is indicated by means of a segmental element (Kuipers 1967:157, Hope 1972:158-161):
| 3. | Squamish | č-n | ʔi'tut | vs. | ʔi'tut-an |
| Dec. | I-sleep | sleep-I | |||
| ‘I indeed sleep.’ | ‘Shall I sleep?’ | ||||
| 4. | Lisu | ása | dye-a̪ | vs. | ása | dye | mà-u̪ | ⇒ | |||
| Asa | go-Dec. | Asa | go | not-Dec. | |||||||
| ‘Asa is going.’ | ása dye mà ø | ⇒ | ása | mà | dye | ||||||
| ‘Asa | didn't | go.’ | |||||||||
Since PIE was an OV language, we would expect it to have a final suffix expressing Dec. This is the value we posit for the
Ever since Thurneysen's brilliant paper on the imperative (1885:172-180), scholars concerned with the earlier forms of verbal endings in PIE have assumed that
| Injunctive | Indicative | |
|---|---|---|
| 2 sg. | bharas | bharasi |
| 3 sg. | bharat | bharati |
The injunctive has long been identified as a form unmarked for mood and marked only for stem and person. It may thus be compared with the simplest form of OV languages. By contrast the present indicative indicates “mood.” We associate this additional feature with the suffix
Yet it is also clear that, by the time of Vedic Sanskrit and, we assume, late PIE, the injunctive no longer contrasted directly with the present indicative. We must therefore conclude that the declarative qualifier was expressed by other means in the sentence. We assume that the means of expression was an intonation pattern. For, in normal unmarked simple sentences, finite unaccented verbs stood finally in their clause, as did the predicative elements of nominal sentences; Delbrück's repeatedly used example may be cited once again to illustrate the typical pattern:
| 5. | víśaḥ | kṣatríyāya | balíṃ | haranti |
| villagers | to-prince | tribute | pay | |
| ‘The villagers pay tribute to the prince.’ | ||||
Since the verb haranti was unaccented, i.e., had no high pitch, we may posit for the normal sentence an intonation pattern in which the final elements in the sentence were accompanied by low pitch.
We support this assumption by noting that a distinctive suprasegmental was used in Vedic to distinguish a contrasting feature, interrogation or request (Wackernagel 1896:296-300). This marker, called pluti by native grammarians, consisted of extra length, as in ágnā3i ‘O fire’ (3 indicates extra length). But a more direct contrast with the intonation of simple sentences may be exemplified by the accentuation of subordinate clauses. These have accented verbs, as in the following line from the Rigveda:
| 6. | RV 8.48.2. | antáś | ca | prā́gā | áditir | bhavāsi |
| inside | if | you-have-entered | Aditi | you-will-be | ||
| ‘If you have entered inside, you will be Aditi.’ | ||||||
As the pitch accent on ágā indicates, verbs in subordinate clauses maintained high pitch, in contrast with verbs of independent clauses like bhavāsi. We may conclude that this high pitch was an element in an intonation pattern which indicated incompleteness, somewhat like the 232 | pattern of contemporary English.
Evidence from other dialects supports our conclusion that, in late PIE, Dec. was indicated by means of an intonation pattern with a drop in accentuation at the end of the clause. In Germanic verse, verbs of unmarked declarative sentences tend to occupy unaccented positions in the line, notably the final position (Lehmann 1956:74). Although the surface expression of accentuation patterns in Germanic is stress, rather than the pitch of Vedic and PIE, the coincidence of accentuation pattern supports our conclusions concerning PIE intonation.
The Q feature interrogation (Int.) was apparently also indicated by means of intonation, for some questions in our early texts have no surface segmental indication distinguishing them from statements, for example, Plautus Aulularia 213:
| 7. | aetatem | meam | scis |
| age | my | you-know | |
| ‘Do you know my age?’ | |||
Only the context indicates to us that this utterance was a question; we may assume that the spoken form included means of expressing Int., and in view of expressions in the later dialects we can only conclude that these means were an intonation pattern.
Questions have generally been classified into two groups: those framed to obtain clarification (Verdeutlichungsfragen), and those framed to obtain confirmation (Bestätigungsfragen — Delbrück 1900:259-271; see Jespersen 1924:302-305 for the labels proposed for the two kinds of questions). For both kinds we posit the feature Int. This feature accompanies statements in which a speaker sets out to elicit information from the hearer. It may be indicated by an intonation pattern, as noted above, or by an affix or a particle, or by characteristic patterns of order, as in German Ist er da? ‘Is he here?’ When Int. is so expressed, the surface marker commonly occupies second position among Q elements, if the entire clause is questioned. The Turkish sentences given above provide examples. If Dec. is not indicated segmentally, the surface expression for Int. stands closest to the end of a clause. In OV languages it would occupy final position, as does ka in Japanese and mi in Turkish. Such means of expression for Int. are found in IE languages, though not in the dialects which are attested earliest.
A notable example is Lat.
| 8. | Parasite: | Aúdin | quid | ait? | Artemona: | Aúdio. | |
| you-heard-Int. | what | he-says | I-hear | ||||
| ‘Did you hear what he is saying?’ | ‘Yes.’ | ||||||
Other evidence for a postponed particle for expressing Int. is found in Avestan, in which
Yet it is remarkable that the particle used to express Int. in Latin, Avestan, and Germanic is homophonous with the particle for expressing negation. Indo-Europeanists have been greatly concerned with determining the origin of this particle, whether it was related to the negative particle *ne or to the Vedic particle of comparison na (Delbrück 1897: 537–540; 1900:263). While we are only secondarily concerned with the origin of surface markers, it is noteworthy that the OV languages Turkish, with mi, and Quechua, with ču, use homophonous elements for the interrogative and the negative. It is not unlikely therefore that PIE ne of questions is the same particle as that used for the negative. As the interrogative particle, however, it has been lost in most dialects. Its loss is one of the indications that late PIE was not a consistent OV language. Rather than a postposed particle, intonation was used to express the Q component Int., as well as particles that were placed early in clauses, often initially. These will be examined below.
Indications of negation (Neg.) in the early dialects are also like the means of expression in VO languages. Neg., by which the speaker negates the verbal means of expression, commonly occupies third position in the hierarchy of Q elements. In Japanese, as illustrated above, it precedes the element for Int., e.g., yomanai ka ‘Does he not read?’ In Classical Hebrew the expression for Neg. follows that for Int. For PIE, however, we can only posit the particles ne and mē, neither of which is normally postposed after verbs; see however Example 70 below. Neg., as well as Int., is accordingly expressed by surface elements that indicate VO structure for late PIE. Unlike the means of expression for qualifiers that remain to be discussed, neither Neg. nor Int. was incorporated in the inflectional endings which are found in the dialects.
4.1.5. Reflexivization (Refl.) and Reciprocity (Recip.).
By Refl. the action expressed by a verb is made to refer to the subject of that verb, e.g., He saw himself. A further category, Recip., may be combined with reflexivization when two or more persons are involved; by Recip. the action of one person is made to reflect on another, e.g., They saw each other. In SVO languages both categories are commonly expressed by means of pronouns, as in English. In OV languages, however, and in VSO languages, they are commonly expressed by means of verbal affixes.
Quechua provides an excellent example, as in the following forms (Bills, Vallejo, and Troike 1969:73, 150), in which ku indicates Refl.; na, Recip.:
| 9. | tapukusan |
| ask Refl. Continuative (Cont.) 3 sg. | |
| ‘He is asking himself.’ |
| 10. | qunakusayku |
| give Recip. Refl. Cont. 1 pl. exclusive | |
| ‘We are giving [it] to each other.’ |
The order of these affixes is of interest. In Quechua the affix for Refl. occupies Position 9 of the thirteen “modal-suffix” positions identified by Bills, Vallejo, and Troike (1969:333-334). All of these precede Neg. and Int. as well as Dec., which Bills et al. label “the factual suffix.” Similarly, in VSO languages, the affix expressing Refl. follows the means for expressing Int. and Neg., as in the Classical Hebrew sentence:
| 11. | lo: hit̄labbe:š |
| Neg. Refl. dress | |
| ‘He did not dress himself.’ |
We account for the survival of the affix expressing Refl. and Recip. in PIE by assuming that, as the language became less consistently OV, the final Q expressions on V were placed preverbally or indicated suprasegmentally. The affix expressing Refl. and Recip., the suffix for the so-called middle, was however maintained until Refl. and Recip. came to be expressed in accordance with the patterns of SVO languages (Lehmann 1973b).
Examination of expression for the middle in the early dialects illuminates the method of indicating Q constituents in earlier stages of PIE, as we noted above in § 4.1.2. The suffix for the middle, o, was placed after the person suffix, but before the suffix expressing Dec., i. It is curious that this device was adopted again in Hittite, where
As we indicated earlier in this chapter, not all elements are required with every finite verbal form. Thus Quechua may have simple verb forms consisting of verbal root and personal ending:
| 12. | hamu - | nku |
| come | they | |
| ‘They (will) come.’ | ||
| 13. | hamu - | sa - | nku |
| come | Cont. | they | |
| ‘They are coming.’ | |||
Verb forms may also be further extended:
| 14. | hamu - | sa - | nku - | ču |
| come | Cont. | they | Neg. | |
| ‘They are not coming.’ | ||||
| 15. | yača - | či | na - | ku - | λa - | sa - | nku |
| know | Caus. | Recip. | Refl. | Delimitative | Cont. | they | |
| ‘They are only teaching each other.’ | |||||||
If at some time in the course of development of a language the means of expression for some of the Q categories are placed before the verb, as were those for Int. and Neg. in late PIE, the remaining categories may be expressed with frozen elements. The combination of these with verbal roots may then constitute a fixed paradigm, such as we find in Sanskrit (Whitney 1896:208-212). From the “schemes of normal endings” presented here we may note those for the third-person singular, active and middle:
| Primary | Secondary | Perfect | Imperative | Subjunctive | Optative | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Act. | Mid. | Act. | Mid. | Act. | Mid. | Act. | Mid. | Act. | Mid. | Act. | Mid. | |||||
| ti | te | t | ta | a | e | tu | tā́m | at(i) | ate | yā́t | ītá | |||||
| ātai | et | eta | ||||||||||||||
The compound morphemes of Sanskrit and the other dialects, which are referred to in IE studies as endings, incorporated a limited set of markers for features. Besides person and number, these represented voice (active as opposed to middle), mood (imperative, optative, subjunctive), aspect (perfect, present, aorist), and subsequently tense. This development of compound morphemes, rather than successions of relatively independent affixes as in Quechua, led to considerable changes in the IE syntactic system, as we note below, especially in § 4.2. But on the basis of intensive analysis, the earlier affixes can be identified from relatively transparent forms of the early dialects (Brugmann 1913; 1916; Meillet 1937; Watkins 1969; Cowgill 1968). The categories indicated by these elements will be reviewed in the following sections.
4.1.6. The IE Moods: Necessitative (Nec.) and Voluntative (Vol.).
Nec. indicates that the person involved in the action is required to carry it out. Examples may be given with Turkish meli/malı forms:
| 16. | yapmalı |
| ‘(he, she, it) must do’ |
| 17. | oturmalısınız |
| ‘you must sit down’ |
The PIE subjunctive may resemble in meaning an obligative (Obl.). Both of these modalities are included in modal logic under alethic modality. Yet each feature may be expressed separately in a language, as in Quechua, where Obl. is indicated by a periphrastic construction (Bills, Vallejo, and Troike 1969:139) and Nec., or the imperative, by an inflection (ibid.: 13 et passim). In spite of such possible differences, the imperative and subjunctive are here introduced through Nec.
Apart from unmarked forms in the second person, the imperative was expressed by means of a
By Vol. the subject expresses a wish. The affix in PIE was
As we have noted above, wishes have been included under intentional modality, along with desires, hopes, and intentions. Expressions for desire are found in some languages, as in the Japanese desiderative, e.g., yomitai ‘he wants to read.’ Sanskrit too has an inflection for the desiderative, as in the form iyakṣasi noted above. The marker and the uses of the desiderative are similar to those for the future, as in Skt. yakṣyasi. The evidence is unclear for PIE, in which these affixes may have been sporadic. We may therefore view expressions for desire as a part of the derivational system in PIE and their subsequent developments in the dialects as features of the individual dialects rather than of the parent language.
4.1.7. Aspects.
If we use the term aspect for semantic features, disregarding their manner of expression in a given language, we may posit two basic categories: Imperf. and Perf. (or -Perf. and +Perf.). Use of Perf. indicates that the action is assumed to be completed. As a consequence, Imperf. commonly indicates incomplete action; yet it is more precise to state that, with an Imperf. expression, there is no implication that the action is completed. As Wolfgang Dressler noted in his capable monograph (1968:43), imperfective forms are predominant in negative sentences.
The contrast in aspect is accompanied by other connotations, which have been extensively discussed. Thus Perf. also carries the connotation of punctual action, or even totality (ganzheitlich). And Imperf. carries the connotation of linear, continuative, or durative action and lack of totality (nicht ganzheitlich).
Moreover, Giacomo Devoto has pointed out the quantitative connotation of aspect (1958:396-398). It is this connotation which Dressler has explored in his monograph on plurality. For continuative aspect may be associated with distributive or iterative meaning; it may also be related to intensive aspect, which in turn may imply emphatic aspect.
Support for the assumption of such interrelationships may be provided by noting the IE
For PIE we posit a separate inflection for perfective aspect—the form which has developed into the perfect in Sanskrit and Greek and into various preterite forms in other dialects. The perfect was characterized in PIE by special endings in the singular (-xe, -the, -e, as opposed to
| 18. | RV 2.35.2. | kuvíd | asya | védat |
| certainly | it | he-will-understand | ||
| ‘Gewiß wird er es verstehen.’ (Geldner 1951-1957:I, 321) | ||||
Since the perfect stood in direct contrast with the imperfective present, the basic aspectual contrast in PIE was between perfective and imperfective.
Perfective aspect was in turn distinguished for -momentary versus +momentary aspect. As the cited Vedic example (18) indicates, and as is suggested by the characterization stative for the perfect, its perfective aspect was -momentary. By contrast, momentary aspect was indicated by means of the so-called aorist. This was characterized by zero grade of the root and secondary endings. The contrasts may be illustrated by the three following examples from the Rigveda:
| 19. | RV 6.24.9. | sthā́ | ū ṣu | ūrdhvá | (aorist) |
| stand | at-once | straight | |||
| ‘Stand up straight at once.’ | |||||
| 20. | RV 10.27.14. | tasthaú | mātā́ | (perfect) |
| has-stood-up | mother | |||
| ‘The mother is standing.’ | ||||
| ‘Die Mutter steht still.’ (Geldner (1951-1957:III, 167) | ||||
| 21. | RV 8.19.10. | |||||
| yásya | tvám | ūrdhvó | adhvarā́ya | tíṣṭhasi | (present) | |
| whose | you | straight | for-religious-celebration | you-are-standing | ||
| ‘For whose religious celebration you are standing erect.’ | ||||||
| ‘Zu dessen heiliger Handlung du aufrecht darstehst.’ (Geldner 1951-1957: II, 320) | ||||||
As the further context indicates, in Example 21 the present form implies continued support for the celebrant; in Example 20, by contrast, the perfect indicates a completed action, without an implication of momentary activity. Example 19 simply implies a momentary, completed action.
We posit this aspectual relationship for PIE, with a hierarchy as follows:
Indications for aspect were made partly by suffixation, as for the perfect with its suffix
Tense was not indicated in the early IE verb system, but it came to be the prominent characteristic in the early dialects. As the use of the prefix
4.1.8. The Causative (Caus.) and the Passive (Pass.).
Causation was expressed by suffixes in the early dialects, and presumably in late PIE. Yet the predominant suffix,
Caus. was also indicated by an
Among other problems to investigate is the relationship of each to the so-called Vedic passive, a present inflection with
Besides the possible further illumination of the IE verb system resulting from additional study of the causative formations, we may note from their restricted forms the similarity of the early IE verb system to that of OV languages. It is well known that causatives in
Only when the IE verb system developed a set of standard inflections and fixed endings were derived forms like those in
4.1.9. Congruence and Deixis Categories.
Indications for congruence and for deixis differ considerably from those of Q categories. As one important difference, expressions for such categories are often lacking in verb systems, especially with respect to OV languages; Japanese for example has no inflectional indications of either person or number. Among the important differences when congruence and deixis are expressed is the lack of hierarchy with relation to the expressions of Q categories. Among the Q categories, as we have noted, expressions for Int. and Neg. are placed closer to the sentence boundary than are expressions for moods and aspects. The position of expressions for congruence and deixis is independent of that for any Q categories. This independence has obscured the analysis of some endings, as we will note below.
In PIE the deixis categories referred to as first, second, and third person were expressed in verb forms, as were the congruence categories singular, dual, and plural. Since the basic functions of these are well known and relatively uncomplicated, they will not be discussed further here. The subsequent role of person in the verb came to affect its entire system and to bring about one of the characteristic features of IE languages, as we will note in the following section.
4.2. The Subjective Quality of the Verb in lE.
Among characteristics of IE, in contrast with other languages, is the sharp distinction between the noun and the verb. Meillet states emphatically that the distinction is more precise in IE than in other languages (1937:187). As a further important characteristic, the IE verb is characterized by a feature which Ernst Lewy has labeled subjective (1942:24). This designation refers to the inclusion in the finite verbal forms of an indication for the actor or subject. Thus, though they lack indications of mood and tense, the injunctive forms in Vedic include indications of the person involved in the action.
Many languages, on the other hand, do not include expression of person in finite verb forms. For example, a Japanese verb form such as yomu ‘read’ may be used when the subject is ‘I, you, he, she, it, we, they’ or nouns. The same is true of other finite forms such as yonda ‘read (past)’. The Japanese system accordingly lacks indication of the subjective feature in its simple forms. Another contrast with the IE verb system may be illustrated by Basque, in which the verb is characterized by differing intransitive and transitive forms which are accompanied by different inflected forms of the subject. As the dominant characteristic of the Basque verb, Lewy sees the “passive feature (Fassung)” of the transitive. A further contrasting system is illustrated by Samoyede, in which Lewy sees as an essential characteristic the possessive feature of the transitive verb; for the transitive expression corresponding to ‘I cut’ is like that of the nominal possessive construction ‘my boat’, literally therefore, ‘my cutting’. As these examples may illustrate, the requirement that the acting subject be expressed in the verb form differentiates the IE verb system characteristically from that of many other languages.
The incorporation of the expression for subject has also had an important influence on the IE verbal system and on its categories. For the included subject came to dominate not only the verb and its categories, but also the entire clause; in this way it has also determined the form and meaning of embedded elements. This domination has modified especially the meaning of verbal forms like the subjunctive and optative, as well as nonfinite forms, as we will see below.
Before examining these effects, we may note that verbal systems are capable of undergoing fundamental modifications. Modern Hindi, for example, has a system more like that of Basque and Dravidian than like that of Vedic. And Hungarian has given up some characteristics of the Finno-Ugric system, apparently under influence of the neighboring IE languages, notably German. PIE itself includes indications that the verbal system reconstructed from the dialects was fundamentally modified at one point in its history. For a large number of “impersonal” verbs point to an earlier system in which the actor, or subject, is not expressed; for any given verb form, the subject then may have been as varied as for the Japanese verb. Thus the Latin verb paenitet means ‘there is woe for...’ rather than ‘he, she, it undergoes woe, is sorry’. For more precise specification a pronoun is necessary, for example, paenitet me ‘I am sorry’. Similarly the impersonal passives common in older Latin have no reference to person, as in line 273 from Plautus's Pseudolus:
| 22. | Quid | agitur | Calidore? | Amatur | atque | egetur | acriter; |
| What | is-carried-out | Calidorus | is-loved | and | is-missed | vehemently | |
| ‘How are things, Calidorus?’ ‘I’m in love, and in great agony.’ | |||||||
On the basis of such verbs, which are particularly prominent in reporting natural events, e.g., pluit ‘is raining’, we may conclude that at an earlier time the IE verb was not subjective.
In the course of time the incorporated subject dominated not only the meaning of the root but also that of the Q element, as we may illustrate with virtually any verb form. The Vedic optative first plural vánāmahai accordingly means ‘we want to’ plus ‘(we) win’, that is ‘we want to win’, By contrast the desiderative element in Japanese may merely dominate a further segment of the verb form, as in the form seraretashi of the formal written style. The simple desiderative, as in shitashi, may be translated ‘I want to do’. The desiderative suffix may be added to the passive, of which the simple form serareru may be translated ‘be done’. The passive also may have a potential meaning; because such a meaning suggests “politeness,” the passive may be used to refer to the action of the person addressed. Where the desiderative is made of the passive, as in seraretashi, the form is translated ‘I want you to do’. The desiderative accordingly dominates only the “passive” affix, not the entire verb form. A similar example of restricted dominance was given above for Turkish. In late PIE such a restricted field of dominance was found in only a few forms; in the dialects these were lost, or modified in accordance with the subjective principle.
As the following examples indicate, the moods in PIE are controlled by the person indicated in the finite form (Delbrück 1900:425-427):
| 23. | RV 5.54.15. |
| ||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||
| ‘Receive favorably this my word, O Maruts, through whose strength we would like to survive a hundred years.’ | ||||||||||||||
| 24. | RV 9.101.9. | ā́ | bhara... | rayíṃ | yéna | vánāmahai |
| hither | you-must-bear... | riches | by-which | we-want-to-win | ||
| ‘Bring riches here, through which we wish to conquer.’ | ||||||
Examples of the dominance of the incorporated person marker over participles are also common, such as:
| 25. | RV 4.2.3. | antár | īyase | aruṣā́ | yujānó |
| between | thou-goest | two-roans | yoking | ||
| ‘You travel among [them] after yoking your two roans.’ | |||||
Nonfinite verb forms could be used in this way to maintain the subject of the dominant verb.
As a consequence of dominance by the subjective component of the principal verb, the inflected verbs of embedded clauses lost their independent qualifier meanings; the qualifier affixes then indicated subordination. This effect is clearest with regard to the optative and the subjunctive, which in the course of time were used largely in embedded clauses and lost the meaning found for them in independent clauses of the earliest texts (see Macdonell 1916:362-363).
Further effects will be noted in greater detail below, such as the well-known “sequence of tenses” in the classical languages and modifications of person in embedded clauses, e.g.:
| 26. | I told him that he should come. |
| From: I told him: (You) come! |
At this point I have been primarily concerned with indicating the subject's dominance over individual verb forms and its consequences for the development of the verb systems in late PIE and the dialects. In view of these modifications we must determine the meaning of the PIE inflected forms from their uses in simple sentences, as we will do in the following section.
4.3. Modified Forms of the PIE Simple Sentence.
4.3.1. Declarative Sentences.
As we have seen above, the simplest form of the sentence in late PIE was characterized by normal word order and by an intonation pattern with final drop. Such a sentence could consist of a verb alone, as in the frequently cited expressions for natural phenomena (Brugmann 1904a:624-626):
| 27. | Skt. vāti (cf. RV 4.40.3) |
| ‘Blows’ = ‘The wind is blowing.’ |
Other intransitive verbs could also make up a complete sentence, as in the Hittite Muršilis Sprachlähmung (Götze and Pedersen 1934:4, § 3) with sentence connective nu:
| 28. | nu nahhun |
| ‘And I got scared.’ |
As Meillet and others have indicated, in PIE such sentences were complete and did not require a separate subject. When a “subject” was included, it is to be regarded as appositional to the subjective element of the verb form, as in Meillet's example:
| 29. | mūgit | taurus |
| he-bellows | bull | |
| ‘The bull is bellowing.’ | ||
When transitive verbs were used in sentences, an object was required. Next to sentences consisting of verb alone, object plus verb made up the simplest form of the sentence. The object could stand in any one of the oblique cases, as exemplified in Chapter 2. An example of a sentence with an accusative object is from Muršilis Sprachlähmung (Götze and Pedersen 1934:6, § 15):
| 30. | nu | GUD | puhugarin | únuu̯er |
| and | bull | scape- | they-adorned | |
| ‘And they adorned a scape-bull.’ | ||||
If in addition a subject was specified, the sentence observed the order SOV, as in the next line (Götze and Pedersen 1934:6, § 16):
| 31. | nu- šan | DUTUŠI | ŠU-an | daiš |
| Ptc.-Ptc. | (my) sun = I | hand | put | |
| ‘And I placed my hand on it.’ | ||||
Such simple sentences could have many surface varieties, among them coordinate expressions, as in the following sentence from a Strophic poem of the Rigveda. The object consists of two coordinate genitives; the verb kir is inflected in the intensive subjunctive.
| 32. | RV 4.39.1. | divás | pṛthivyā́ | utá | carkirāma |
| sky | earth | and | we-praise | ||
| ‘We want to praise the sky and the earth.’ | |||||
Whatever the varieties, the normal unmarked form of the PIE sentence has the order (S)OV.
With marked order the position of these sentence constituents is changed. A fine example may be taken from the Hittite Laws; in a sequence that has SOV order when the S refers to a specific kind of culprit, the order is OSV when S refers to an indefinite actor (J. Friedrich 1959:68, § 25):
| 33. | takku | SIG4 | kuiški | taiezzi |
| if | bricks | someone | he-steals | |
| ‘If someone steals bricks...’ | ||||
Or the verb may stand in first position, as in:
| 34. | RV 4.48.1. | vihí | hótrā |
| you-enjoy | poured-offerings | ||
| ‘Enjoy the libations!’ | |||
In such sentences the verb is often an imperative, as in Example 34.
Imperatives and vocatives may also make up a complete sentence or a complete clause, as is indicated by their accentuation in the Rigveda when they are embedded or when each is taken as a separate clause:
| 35. | RV 4.9.1. | ágne | mṛḷá | mahā́ṅ | asi |
| O-Agni | you-be-gracious | great | thou-art | ||
| ‘Be gracious, Agni. You are great.’ | |||||
Like other verb forms, imperatives may be accompanied by objects.
Besides the sentences consisting of a verb, with or without an object and an explicit subject, sentences could be expanded by means of optional noun phrases. These noun phrases could stand in any of the oblique cases, according to the sense of the sentence. Their position was determined by stylistic reasons. Because such expansions are similar to one another regardless of the case, only a few examples will be given here (J. Friedrich 1959:68, § 25):
| 36. | takku | šamanaz | NA4HI.A | kuiški | taiezzi |
| if | from-foundation | stones | someone | he-steals | |
| ‘If someone steals stones from a foundation...’ | |||||
| 37. | RV 4.16.5. | ubhé | ā́ | paprau | ródasī | mahitvā́ |
| both | up | he-filled | worlds | with-great-size | ||
| ‘(Indra) filled up both worlds with his great size.’ | ||||||
The Hittite example contains an ablative in addition to the object and subject; the Vedic example contains an instrumental. Examples with datives, locatives, and genitives might also be included here; they would merely provide further evidence of the variety of adverbial elements that could be included in simple sentences by the addition of noun phrases in oblique cases.
4.3.1.a. Nominal Sentences.
Equational sentences, in which a substantive is equated with another substantive, an adjective, or a particle, make up a second type of sentence in PIE. In previous treatments they have been called nominal sentences, and accordingly the term is maintained here.
| 38. | Old Persian (Kent 1953:116). | adam | Dārayavauš |
| I | Darius | ||
| ‘I am Darius.’ | |||
| 39. | RV 7.12.3. | tváṃ | váruṇa |
| you | Varuna | ||
| ‘You are Varuna.’ | |||
| 40. | Hittite (J. Friedrich 1960:117). | attaš | aššuš |
| father | good | ||
| ‘The father is good.’ | |||
| 41. | RV 4.28.5. | evā́ | satyám | maghavānā |
| thus | true | benefactors | ||
| ‘Thus is the truth, O benefactors.’ | ||||
As these examples illustrate, a verb is not required in such sentences. The sentence consists simply of a topic in first position plus a description or predicate in second.
The basic form of nominal sentences has, however, been a matter of dispute. Some Indo-Europeanists propose that the absence of a verb in nominal sentences is a result of ellipsis and assume an underlying verb
| 42. | Hittite (J. Friedrich 1960:118). | ABU.I̯A | genzuu̯alaš | ešta |
| my-father | merciful | he-was | ||
| ‘My father was merciful.’ | ||||
Yet, as we have noted, tense was not a feature of the verbal system of PIE; sentences like Example 42 are accordingly post-Indo-European. Time of the state or action could have been indicated earlier by particles. Accordingly I follow Meillet (1906-1908) in the view that nominal sentences did not require a verb but that a verb might be included for emphasis.
This conclusion may be supported by noting that the qualifiers which were found in PIE could be used in nominal sentences without a verb. As an example we may cite a Hittite sentence which is negative and imperative (J. Friedrich 1960:117):
| 43. | 1-aš | 1-edani | menahhanda | lē | idāluš |
| one | to-another | towards | not | evil | |
| ‘One should not be evil toward another one.’ | |||||
Yet, if a passage was to be explicit, a form of the root ʔes could be used, as in the following:
| 44. | RV 4.30.1. | nákir | indra | tvád | úttaro | ná | jyā́yāṅ | asti |
| no-one | O-Indra | from-you | higher | not | greater | he-is | ||
| ‘No one is higher than you, Indra, nor greater.’ | ||||||||
In the course of time a nominal sentence required a verb; this development is in accordance with the subjective characteristic of PIE and the endings which came to replace the individual qualifier markers of early PIE. The various dialects no longer had a distinct equational sentence type. Verbs might of course be omitted by ellipsis. And, remarkably, in Slavic, nominal sentences were reintroduced, as Meillet has demonstrated (1906-1908). The reintroduction is probably a result of influence from OV languages, such as the Finno-Ugric. This phenomenon illustrates that syntactic constructions and syntactic characteristics must be carefully studied before they can be ascribed to inheritance. In North Germanic too an OV characteristic was reintroduced, with the loss of prefixes towards the end of the first millennium A.D. (Lehmann 1970a). Yet in spite of these subsequent OV influences, nominal sentences must be assumed for PIE.
4.3.1.b. Sentences Expanded by Means of Particles.
In addition to expansions by means of additional nouns in nonrequired cases, as illustrated above in Examples 36 and 37, sentences could be expanded by means of particles.
Three subsets of particles came to be particularly important. One of these is the set of preverbs, such as ā in Example 37. Another is the set of sentence connectives, such as Hitt. nu. The third is the set of qualifier expressions, e.g., PIE mē ‘(must) not’. An additional subset, conjunctions introducing clauses, will be discussed below in the section on compound clauses.
Preverbs are distinctively characterized by being closely associated with verbs and modifying their meaning. In their normal position they stand directly before verbs (Watkins 1964), as in the following line from an Archaic hymn:
| 45. | RV 8.48.8. | mā́ | no | aryó | anukāmám | párā | dāḥ |
| not | us | of-foe | desire | away | you-give | ||
| ‘Do not desert us in accordance with the desire of our enemy.’ | |||||||
As in this example, the preverb is accented in independent clauses (Macdonell 1916:468-469); but in subordinate clauses it is unaccented, as is saṃ below:
| 46. | RV 8.48.1. |
| ||||||||||
| ||||||||||||
| ‘About which all gods and mortals, calling it honey, assemble.’ | ||||||||||||
In marked order, on the other hand, the preverb stands at the beginning of the clause:
| 47. | RV 8.48.2. | ánu | rāyá | ṛdhyāḥ |
| towards | wealth | you-thrive | ||
| ‘Prosper us with wealth.’ | ||||
Such constructions are also prominent in Homeric Greek and in Hittite, as in the following passage from the Hittite Laws (J. Friedrich 1959:76, § 56):
| 48. |
| ||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
| ‘If a mother throws out the garment of her son, then she expels her son.’ |
Preverbs in this way make up a distinctive syntactic combination with their verbal roots. As the translations given above indicate, for example that of Skt. párā dāḥ (Example 45), these combinations had specific meanings differing from those of the root. Moreover, they also developed
distinct syntactic properties, as in the transitive combination (Example 47), when anu is used with the root
In the course of time these combinations were conflated to single words, as in Classical Greek and Latin and in the other late dialects. This development took place over a long period of time, as is evident from combinations like Gothic:
| 49. | ga-u-laubjats |
| ‘Do you two believe?’ |
in which the preverb is separated from the verb by the interrogative particle. The IE pattern has also left reflexes in Modern German, as in Vórmund ‘guardian’, OHG fóramundo, in which the preverbal element was accented in accordance with compound-noun patterning. In verliéren ‘lose’, on the other hand, the preverb is unaccented. By its vowel it indicates the Germanic and IE situation in which its etymon, maintained also in Hitt. parā (Example 48), Skt. prá, Gk. pró, and so on, was a separate word in Germanic until the time when a stress accent was fixed on the first syllable of words. And the German “separable-prefix” construction, as in:
| 50. | Er liest vor. ‘He is lecturing.’ |
maintains the pattern in which the preverb had its own accent.
The PIE combination, in which each of the elements of the preverbverb syntagm was independent, though the combination functioned as a unit, required the classification of preverbs as a distinct class of particles and of sentences in which such combinations occurred as a distinct subclass. (See also Delbrück 1888:44-51, 432-471; 1897:103-109.) The subsequent history of these elements, when the preverb came to be attached to verbs in some combinations and developed independently to adverbs and to prepositions, varies from dialect to dialect and must be separately described for each.
While the syntactic patterning of preverbs is well understood, the role of sentence connectives is not. Delbrück had pointed out that particles like Skt. sá, nú, and tú were used as connectives in clauses (1888:215-216, 514-519). Moreover, a connective nū frequently introduces sentences. When Hittite was discovered, it was noted that cognates of these particles, nu, ta, šu, were consistently used to introduce sentences (J. Friedrich 1960:155-161). Although E. H. Sturtevant brought this use dramatically to the attention of Indo-Europeanists by proposing that the demonstrative pronoun, as in Skt. sás, sā́, tad, was a reflex of these particles combined with anaphoric pronouns, the syntactic significance for PIE of the sentence connectives was not widely discussed until Albrecht Götze and Myles Dillon linked the Hittite syntactic patterning with the use of sentence-initial particles in Celtic (Sturtevant 1942:26, Dillon 1947:15-24). Yet the syntactic patterning of such elements has not been precisely described, in part because we do not yet know how sentence connectives function in the various language types.
Sentence connectives are prominent in the VSO language Squamish (Kuipers 1967:154-187, 169). If sentence connectives are to be expected in VSO languages, we might look for a similar syntactic pattern in the VSO Insular Celtic languages, where they indeed occur. If typological features are to be expected in a specific language type, the sentence connectives and their patterning in the Anatolian and possibly even in the Indic languages may then have been borrowings. Accordingly an interpretation of the use of sentence connectives faces many problems. For the understanding of PIE syntax, the use of sentence connectives will have to be investigated in each of the dialects. See also the urging of Erich Neu (1970:61) concerning the need of investigations.
Carol Raman has carried out such a study for Hittite. She has concluded that in clauses with nu the same noun is topic as in the main or earlier clause. This function may be illustrated in a passage from Ein althethitisches Gewitterritual (Neu 1970:10, 6). After the introduction of the subject, with a modifying clause, three verbs without a specified subject are introduced by nu (or nu + e ‘they’), as follows: “The UBĀRU people and whichever lord happens to be sitting before the king...”
| 51. | ne | šara | tienzi | nu | appa | tienzi | ne | aranda |
| up | they-step | back | they-step | they-remain-standing | ||||
| “they get up, they step back and remain standing.” | ||||||||
This function of nu may have developed because the topic noun is commonly deleted from the matrix clause and kept in the embedded clause, as here. An English chronicler would phrase the above sentence: “The UBĀRU people and the lord who happens to be sitting before the king get up, step back, and remain standing.” For the understanding of this pattern in Hittite syntax we may note that nu in this use becomes much more frequent in the later texts (J. Friedrich 1960:157).
Johannes Friedrich also points out (1960:157-158) that nu is not used in certain clause and sentence patterns, for example, at the beginning of a new section, in commands and exclamations after negative commands, in emphatic sentences, in parenthetical supplementary clauses, and in the somewhat similar clauses indicating state (Zustandssätze). In all of these patterns there is characteristically a shift in the topic; accordingly the absence of nu would support Raman's conclusion. Furthermore, it is tempting to see in the expanding use of nu in later Hittite an influence from neighboring VSO languages, such as the Semitic.
If we account for the use of nu in this way, we still need to consider the comparable use of ta and, less frequently, šu in the older language (J. Friedrich 1960:161). These are the particles that seem to be cognate with Indic ta and sa and thus led Sturtevant to propose his etymology of the demonstrative *so, sā, tod. There is no doubt about the occurrence of these Hittite sentence connectives; but both are far less frequent than is nu in the later texts. Since however the particles are used similarly in both Hittite and Vedic, we may well assume etyma for them in PIE and the use of sentence connectives in some of its sentences. But such use was probably similar to that noted by Raman for Hittite; sentence connectives accordingly were found in only a small number of sentences. Such sentences are not to be characterized as a specific subclass; the sentence connective in PIE should rather be classed with conjunctions.
We are then left with the problem of accounting for introductory particles like nū́ in Vedic (Delbrück 1888:514-515) and the sentence connectives that Dillon and Götze noted in Old Irish (Dillon 1947). Vedic nū́ simply introduces clauses, with the meaning ‘now’. From such a use the Hittite pattern might well have been expanded, and that of Old Irish no as well (Watkins 1962:113-114;1963:10-17). As noted above, “empty preverbs” to which enclitic pronouns are suffixed may well be characteristic of VSO languages. Such an assumption may be supported by a remarkable parallelism in the use of the Squamish “clitics /namʔ/ ‘go’ and /mʔi/ ‘come’” and forms of Hitt.
The particles which signal Q characteristics, like the interrogative and negative, must however be regarded as indicating specific clause types. These clause types will be discussed individually in the following sections.
4.3.2. Interrogatives.
As noted above, § 4.1.3, interrogative sentences could be distinguished by intonation alone, as in Example 7, or by the use of an interrogative particle or other interrogative words, as in Example 8. The device of order was apparently not used to indicate questions in PIE. But both other devices were used in each of the types, clarification questions and confirmation questions (see Delbrück 1900:259-288).
Clarification questions generally have the interrogative pronoun or particle in initial position, as in the following Hittite example (J. Friedrich 1960:147):
| 52. | kuit | apāt |
| what | that | |
| ‘What's the purpose of that?’ | ||
Initial position is the general pattern in the dialects; but in marked patterns the interrogative word could stand elsewhere, as in the following Strophic passage:
| 53. | RV 4.5.8. | pravā́cyaṃ | vácasaḥ | kím | me | asyá |
| to-be-reported | of-word | what | to-me | of-it | ||
| ‘What of this word is to be reported to me?’ | ||||||
This may also be the reason for the position of the interrogative in the following example (J. Friedrich 1960:147):
| 54. | nu | namma | kuit |
| Ptc. | still | what | |
| ‘What is there in addition?’ | |||
More than one interrogative word could also be used in clarification questions, as in the following question (see also Delbrück 1893:511; 1900:256-260):
| 55. | Odyssey 1.170. | tís | póthen | eis | andrôn? |
| who | whence | are-you | of-men | ||
| ‘Who among men are you, and where are you from?’ (= ‘Who is your father?’) | |||||
This pattern, found also in Polish (Wachowicz 1974), is not possible in many IE dialects, including English. In general, clarification questions have one interrogative word and this is initial in its clause, as also in:
| 56. | Odyssey 1.158. | ȇ | kaí | moi | nemesḗseai |
| ? | now | with-me | you-will-be-angry | ||
| ‘Will you be angry with me?’ | |||||
Confirmation questions also have an initial or near-initial interrogative, unless they are without an overt means of expression, as in the following Hittite example (J. Friedrich 1960:146):
| 57. | ŠEŠ-IA-za | malāši |
| brother-my-Ptc. Refl. | you-consent | |
| ‘Are you agreed, brother?’ | ||
As noted above, § 4.1.4, specific particles are found in the various dialects, such as nu in Sanskrit, nú or ȇ in Greek, ne, nonne, and num in Latin, u in Gothic, li in Slavic, and so on.
| 58. | John 9:35. | sù | pisteúeis | eis | tòn | huiòn | toȗ theoȗ |
| Gothic. | þu | ga-u-laubeis | du | sunau | gudis? | ||
| you | be-?-lieve | in-the | son | of-god | |||
| ‘Do you believe in the Son of God?’ | |||||||
It has often been pointed out that these particles are located initially or in near-initial position as a result of a transportation rule (Streitberg 1920:161). The rule was proposed by Wackernagel in an influential article (1892:333-434); it will be discussed below in § 4.5.
In the later dialects, interrogative particles are associated with presuppositions. Greek ou presupposes a positive answer, as do nonne in Latin and niu in Gothic. Presumably this is also the force of the initial “negative” particle in Hittite (J. Friedrich 1960:146):
| 59. | UL-u̯ar-an-kan | tuētaza | memii̯anaz | kuennir |
| "not" quotes-him-away | from-you | from-word | they-killed | |
| ‘Didn't they kill him at your word?’ | ||||
On the other hand, Gk. mḗ plus ȇ presupposes a negative answer, as do Lat. num and Goth. ibai.
| 60. | Odyssey 9.405. | ȇ | mḗ tís | seu | mȇla | brotȏn | aékontos | elaúnei |
| ? | no one | your | sheep | of-mortals | unwilling | he-drives | ||
| ‘It is scarcely true that some one of mortals is driving off your sheep against your will?’ | ||||||||
Since the particles differ from dialect to dialect, it is difficult to argue that interrogative particles with specific presuppositions should be ascribed to PIE. The pattern may have been inherited, however, and the surface forms changed; for as Hittite natta (generally written as Akkadian UL) and Greek ou illustrate, such particles were commonly changed or new particles were introduced.
In addition to the simple questions illustrated above, PIE very likely had disjunctive questions. Delbrück gives examples with pluti (1900: 268); in Greek the particle ȇ/ēé was used, either between the two queries or initially in both.
| 61. | Iliad 10.534. | pseúsomai | ȇ | étumon | eréō? |
| I-lie | or | truth | I-tell | ||
| ‘Should I lie or should I tell the truth?’ | |||||
In a nominal sentence, only the predicate nouns are essential, as in:
| 62. | Odyssey 1.226. | eilapínē | ēè | gámos |
| revel | or | wedding-feast | ||
| ‘Is it a drinking party or a wedding feast?’ | ||||
In such disjunctive sentences the function of the particle has been argued. It has been interpreted as an interrogative particle. But for Delbrück it was simply a disjunctive conjunction (1900:268-269), and the interrogative itself was signaled by intonation. If so, the Greek examples cited here would be similar to Sanskrit disjunctive questions. Since Hittite disjunctive questions are also indicated by a disjunctive particle rather than by an interrogative particle, Delbrück's conclusion seems the correct one.