Proto-Indo-European verb
Encyclopedia
The verb
al system of the Proto-Indo-European language
(PIE) was a complex system, with verbs categorized according to their aspect
— stative, imperfective, or perfective. The system utilized multiple grammatical mood
s and voices, with verbs being conjugated
according to person
, number
and tense
. The system of adding affix
es to the base form of a verb (its root
) allowed modifications so that it could form nouns, verbs, or adjectives. The verbal system is clearly represented in Ancient Greek
and Vedic Sanskrit
, which closely correspond in nearly all aspects of their verbal systems and are two of the most well-understood of the early daughter languages of Proto-Indo-European. Aside from the addition of affixes, vowels in the word could be modified in a process called ablaut
. This is still visible in the Germanic languages (among others)—for example, the vowel in the English verb to sing varies according to the conjugation of the verb: sing, sang, and sung.
The system described here is known as the "Cowgill-Rix" system and, strictly speaking, applies only to what Don Ringe terms "Western Indo-European" (Western IE), i.e. IE excluding Tocharian and especially Anatolian
. The system also describes Tocharian fairly well, but encounters significant difficulties when applied to Hittite
and the other Anatolian languages. In particular, despite the fact that the Anatolian languages are the earliest-attested IE languages, much of the complexity of the Cowgill-Rix system is absent from them. In addition, contrary to the situation with other languages with relatively simple verbal systems, such as Germanic
, there is little or no evidence of the "missing" forms having ever existed. Furthermore, many of the forms that do exist have a significantly different meaning from elsewhere. For example, the PIE perfect/stative conjugation shows up simply as a present-tense conjugation known as the ḫi-present, with no clear meaning; on the other hand, the PIE nu-present, which in other languages is a primary verb suffix with no clear meaning, is in Hittite a productive secondary verb suffix that forms causative verbs. (On the other hand, Germanic, among others, has a class of present-tense verbs derived from PIE perfect/stative verbs, and both Germanic and Balto-Slavic have a class of secondary n- verbs with a clear meaning, derived originally from nu- and/or neH- verbs, so it is possible that many of the Anatolian differences are innovations.) It is generally accepted that the Anatolian languages diverged from other IE languages at a point somewhat before the Cowgill-Rix system was fully formed; however, there is no consensus concerning what the inherited system looked like, and which Anatolian differences are innovations vs. archaisms.
s belonged to one of two aspect classes: stative (verbs that depict a state of being; also known as the perfect system) and eventive
, the latter of which is broken down into imperfective
(verbs depicting ongoing, habitual or repeated action; also known as the present system) and perfective
(verbs depicting a completed action or actions viewed as an entire process; also known as the aorist system).
The terminology around the stative, perfective and imperfective aspects can be confusing. The use of these terms here is based on the reconstructed meanings of the corresponding forms in PIE and the terms used broadly in linguistics to refer to aspects with these meanings. In traditional PIE terminology, the forms described here as stative, perfective and imperfective are known as the perfect, aorist and present systems. The present/imperfective system in turn can be conjugated in two tenses, described here as present and past but traditionally known as present and imperfect. The traditional terms are based on the names of the corresponding forms in Ancient Greek
(also applied to Sanskrit), and are still commonly encountered. Furthermore, there is a separate secondary-verb form commonly known as the "stative" and marked by a suffix *-eh₁-, which has no connection with the stative/perfect described here.
The following table shows the two systems of terminology.
Each verbal lexeme
, especially eventive verbs, took on its own "root aspect", ostensibly according to the semantics of the root, although there are numerous unexplained surprises. Verbal roots whose default meaning was durative, ongoing, or iterative were generally imperfective, while roots whose meaning was punctiliar or discrete were perfective. Affixation of various types was used both to root certain verbs into their default aspects and to switch their aspects. A verb needed no derivational markers when functioning within its own root aspect, but many, if not most, roots were hyper-characterized with an aspect marker in order to emphasize their root aspects: the s-aorist, retained most notably in Greek, in which an -s- is affixed between the root and the personal ending is an example of a marker that typically characterized an aorist. Examples of aspect switching affixes include -éye/o, sk' e/o, and the nasal infix
, all of which were used to derive present and imperfect verbs from non-present tense verbs. Importantly, the Indo-European verb was not durchkonjugiert ("through-conjugated"); several aspect switchers were available to be added to the root, but while certain roots show a preference for the same markers in multiple daughter languages, it nonetheless appears that particular markers were not exclusively assigned to any root.
For example, the basic word for "stand", *steh2-, was a root aorist; therefore, the word in its default aspect had the sense of "come to a standing position; to rise from a sitting position". In order to speak about "standing" in a present, durative sense ("be in a standing position"), the root aorist required a derivational marker to put it into the imperfective aspect. Most often, this aspect switcher was reduplication (cf. Greek ἵστημι, Sankskrit tíṣṭhati), although Germanic suggests a nasal infix or suffix was also used for this root (Gothic present ik standa vs. preterite ik stoþ), at least by a later period.
In the indicative mood an imperfective verb was conjugated in two tenses
: present
and past
. If the perfect developed before the end of the common PIE period, it was near the end. Verbs had at least four moods: indicative, imperative
, subjunctive
and optative
, as well as possibly the injunctive
, reconstructible from Vedic Sanskrit and Homeric; two voices: active
and mediopassive
; three persons
: first, second, and third; and three numbers
: singular
, dual, and plural
. Verbs were also marked by a highly developed system of participle
s, one for each combination of tense and mood, and an assorted array of verbal noun
s and adjectival formations.
.
In many daughter languages, the stative took on a meaning that implied a previous action that had caused the current state, a meaning which resulted in the Greek perfect. Eventually, by shifting emphasis to the inchoative action, an action that was just started or a state that was just begun prior to the resulting state, the stative generally developed into a past tense (as in Germanic, Latin, and later, Greek). The original present sense of the IE stative is seen in the Germanic preterite-present verbs such as Gothic wait "I know" (< PIE *, originally "I am in a state resulting from having seen/found"; cf. Latin vidēre "to see", Sanskrit vinátti "he finds", with exact cognates in Sanskrit veda and Greek οἴδα, all of which retain their essentially present tense meaning "I know".
The place of the injunctive mood
, of obscure function, is debated. It takes the form of the bare root in e-grade with the omission of the augment
and the hic et nunc particle, which were both tense markers. This causes Fortson (among others) to suggest that the use of the injunctive was for gnomic expressions (as in Homer) or in otherwise timeless statements (as in Vedic).
al classes for verbs, called "conjugations". In many modern languages, and to a fair extent in Latin, each verb lexeme belongs to a particular conjugation which determines all verb forms. In PIE, however, a verb lexeme would belong to one conjugation for each of the three aspects (imperfective, perfective, stative), with no clear relations among them. This leads to the system of describing a verb by its principal parts
, one for each of the conjugational classes that a verb belongs to. (Latin has four principal parts, Ancient Greek six, and Sanskrit at least ten.)
For example, in Sanskrit, there are at least ten present conjugations, seven aorist conjugations, and five perfect conjugations, and in general, knowing the present conjugation of a verb does not help in identifying the aorist or perfect conjugation, and vice-versa. Furthermore, especially in Greek and Sanskrit, many verbs are missing some principal parts, and some verbs can be conjugated in some aspects according to multiple conjugations, sometimes with different meanings (see the above example with the Greek verb peithō).
This can also be seen in the third conjugation of Latin, which includes most verbs directly inherited from PIE. In the Latin third conjugation, verbs in the present tense can be either normal or i-stem, while verbs in the perfect can be formed in any of six or so different ways, and there is no general relation between the two.
, intensive
, and desiderative
. The formation of secondary verbs was part of the derivational
system rather than the inflection
al system, as they existed only for certain verbs and did not necessarily have completely predictable meanings (compare the remnants of causative constructions in English — to fall vs. to fell, to sit vs. to set, to rise vs. to raise and to rear). The above-mentioned verbal nouns and adjectives were likewise part of the derivational system (compare the formation of verbal nouns in English
, using -er, -ing, etc.), although in many daughter languages they were incorporated into the inflectional system.
In PIE, secondary verbs existed only in the imperfective system, and had no stative or perfective forms. Even some of the primary verbs were missing stative or perfective forms, or had forms with unpredictable meanings, and many primary verbs had multiple ways of forming some or all of their aspects, sometimes with differences of meaning among the different forms. Furthermore, evidence from the Rig Veda (the earliest attestation of Sanskrit) indicates that secondary verbs in PIE were not conjugated in the subjunctive or optative moods.
Collectively, all of this indicates that in PIE, especially earlier on, all of the aspects and moods were part of the derivational rather than inflectional system. That is, the various "tenses", moods and such were originally independent lexical formations, similar to the way that verbal nouns in English are formed unpredictably from different suffixes, sometimes with two or more formations that may differ in meaning: e.g. reference vs. referral, transference vs. transferral, recitation vs. recital, or delivery vs. deliverance. Furthermore, a basic constraint in the verbal system prohibited applying a derived form to an already-derived form.
The gradual tendency in all of the daughter languages was to proceed through the stages just described, creating a single conjugational system that applied to all tenses and aspects and allowing all verbs, including secondary verbs, to be conjugated in all inflectional categories. Generally, the primary verbs were largely all lumped together into a single conjugation (e.g. the Latin -ere conjugation), while different secondary-verb formations produced all other conjugations; for the most part, only these latter conjugations were productive in the daughter languages. In most languages, the original distinction between primary and secondary verbs was obscured to some extent, with some primary verbs scattered among the nominally secondary/productive conjugations. Germanic is perhaps the family with the clearest primary/secondary distinction: Nearly all "strong verbs" are primary in origin while nearly all "weak verbs" are secondary, with the two classes clearly distinguished in their past-tense and past-participle formations.
and Balto-Slavic have t-less forms in thematic actives, whereas Vedic
and Hittite
have t-less athematic middle forms. , uses the t-less forms as the starting point for a radical rethinking of the thematic endings, based primarily on Greek and Lithuanian
. These proposals are still controversial, however.
A third conjugation has been proposed in Jay Jasanoff
's
This twofold differentiation of personal endings (see below) was later fully grammaticalized as tense markers. Misleadingly, the earlier Indo-European grammarians named the clearly derived present endings "primary endings".
The following is an example paradigm, based on , of the verb , "leave behind" (athematic nasal-infixed present, root aorist, reduplicated perfect). Two sets of endings are provided for the primary medio-passive forms (subjunctive and primary indicative) — the central dialects (Indo-Iranian, Greek, Germanic, Balto-Slavic, Albanian, and Armenian) use forms ending in , while the peripheral dialects (Italic, Celtic, Hittite, and Tocharian) use forms ending in , which are generally considered the original forms.
Ringe makes certain assumptions about synchronic
PIE phonology that are not universally accepted:
The effects of the generally-accepted synchronic boukólos rule
whereby becomes next to or are shown.
The following is an example paradigm, based on , of the verb "carry" in the simple thematic present tense. Two sets of endings are provided for the primary mediopassive forms, as described above.
The above assumptions about PIE phonology apply, in addition to a rule that deletes laryngeals which occur in the sequence -oRHC or -oRH#, where R stands for any resonant, H any laryngeal, C any consonant and # the end of a word. The most important effect of this rule is to delete most occurrences of in the thematic optative.
, not of tense. That is, the aorist refers to a simple action, the present to an ongoing action, and the perfect to a state resulting from a previous action. An aorist infinitive or imperative, for example, does not refer to a past action, and in fact for many verbs (e.g. "kill") would likely be more common than a present infinitive or imperative. (In some participial constructions, however, an aorist participle can have either a tensal or aspectual meaning.) It is assumed that this distinction of aspect was the original significance of the PIE tenses, rather than any actual tense distinction, and that tense distinctions were originally indicated by means of adverbs, as in Chinese
. It appears that by late PIE, the different tenses had already acquired a tensal meaning in particular contexts, as in Greek. In later Indo-European languages, this became dominant.
The meanings of the three tenses in the oldest Vedic Sanskrit
differs somewhat from their meanings in Greek, and thus it is not clear whether the PIE meanings corresponded exactly to the Greek meanings. In particular, the Vedic imperfect had a meaning that was close to the Greek aorist, and the Vedic aorist had a meaning that was close to the Greek perfect. Meanwhile, the Vedic perfect was often indistinguishable from a present tense (Whitney 1889). In moods other than the indicative, the present, aorist, and perfect were almost indistinguishable from each other.
The lack of semantic distinction between different grammatical forms in a literary language often indicates that some of these forms no longer existed in the spoken language of the time. In fact, in Classical Sanskrit, the subjunctive dropped out, as did all tenses of the optative and imperative other than the present; meanwhile, in the indicative the imperfect, aorist and perfect became largely interchangeable, and in later Classical Sanskrit, all three could be freely replaced by a participial construction. All of these developments appear to reflect changes in spoken Middle Indo-Aryan; among the past tenses, for example, only the aorist survived into early Middle Indo-Aryan, which was later displaced by a participial past tense.
Verb
A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
al system of the Proto-Indo-European language
Proto-Indo-European language
The Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...
(PIE) was a complex system, with verbs categorized according to their aspect
Grammatical aspect
In linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a verb is a grammatical category that defines the temporal flow in a given action, event, or state, from the point of view of the speaker...
— stative, imperfective, or perfective. The system utilized multiple grammatical mood
Grammatical mood
In linguistics, grammatical mood is a grammatical feature of verbs, used to signal modality. That is, it is the use of verbal inflections that allow speakers to express their attitude toward what they are saying...
s and voices, with verbs being conjugated
Grammatical conjugation
In linguistics, conjugation is the creation of derived forms of a verb from its principal parts by inflection . Conjugation may be affected by person, number, gender, tense, aspect, mood, voice, or other grammatical categories...
according to person
Grammatical person
Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...
, number
Grammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
and tense
Grammatical tense
A tense is a grammatical category that locates a situation in time, to indicate when the situation takes place.Bernard Comrie, Aspect, 1976:6:...
. The system of adding affix
Affix
An affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivational, like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed. They are bound morphemes by definition; prefixes and suffixes may be separable affixes...
es to the base form of a verb (its root
Proto-Indo-European root
The roots of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language are basic parts of words that carry a lexical meaning, so-called morphemes. PIE roots always have verbal meaning like "to eat" or "to run", as opposed to nouns , adjectives , or other parts of speech. Roots never occur alone in the language...
) allowed modifications so that it could form nouns, verbs, or adjectives. The verbal system is clearly represented in Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
and Vedic Sanskrit
Vedic Sanskrit
Vedic Sanskrit is an old Indo-Aryan language. It is an archaic form of Sanskrit, an early descendant of Proto-Indo-Iranian. It is closely related to Avestan, the oldest preserved Iranian language...
, which closely correspond in nearly all aspects of their verbal systems and are two of the most well-understood of the early daughter languages of Proto-Indo-European. Aside from the addition of affixes, vowels in the word could be modified in a process called ablaut
Indo-European ablaut
In linguistics, ablaut is a system of apophony in Proto-Indo-European and its far-reaching consequences in all of the modern Indo-European languages...
. This is still visible in the Germanic languages (among others)—for example, the vowel in the English verb to sing varies according to the conjugation of the verb: sing, sang, and sung.
The system described here is known as the "Cowgill-Rix" system and, strictly speaking, applies only to what Don Ringe terms "Western Indo-European" (Western IE), i.e. IE excluding Tocharian and especially Anatolian
Anatolian languages
The Anatolian languages comprise a group of extinct Indo-European languages that were spoken in Asia Minor, the best attested of them being the Hittite language.-Origins:...
. The system also describes Tocharian fairly well, but encounters significant difficulties when applied to Hittite
Hittite language
Hittite is the extinct language once spoken by the Hittites, a people who created an empire centred on Hattusa in north-central Anatolia...
and the other Anatolian languages. In particular, despite the fact that the Anatolian languages are the earliest-attested IE languages, much of the complexity of the Cowgill-Rix system is absent from them. In addition, contrary to the situation with other languages with relatively simple verbal systems, such as Germanic
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...
, there is little or no evidence of the "missing" forms having ever existed. Furthermore, many of the forms that do exist have a significantly different meaning from elsewhere. For example, the PIE perfect/stative conjugation shows up simply as a present-tense conjugation known as the ḫi-present, with no clear meaning; on the other hand, the PIE nu-present, which in other languages is a primary verb suffix with no clear meaning, is in Hittite a productive secondary verb suffix that forms causative verbs. (On the other hand, Germanic, among others, has a class of present-tense verbs derived from PIE perfect/stative verbs, and both Germanic and Balto-Slavic have a class of secondary n- verbs with a clear meaning, derived originally from nu- and/or neH- verbs, so it is possible that many of the Anatolian differences are innovations.) It is generally accepted that the Anatolian languages diverged from other IE languages at a point somewhat before the Cowgill-Rix system was fully formed; however, there is no consensus concerning what the inherited system looked like, and which Anatolian differences are innovations vs. archaisms.
Verbal categories
Proto-Indo-European verb lexemeLexeme
A lexeme is an abstract unit of morphological analysis in linguistics, that roughly corresponds to a set of forms taken by a single word. For example, in the English language, run, runs, ran and running are forms of the same lexeme, conventionally written as RUN...
s belonged to one of two aspect classes: stative (verbs that depict a state of being; also known as the perfect system) and eventive
Eventive
In grammar, eventive may refer to:* eventive mood in Finnish* eventive passive voice aka dynamic passive voice* in transformational grammar, relating to an event as distinct from a fact...
, the latter of which is broken down into imperfective
Imperfective aspect
The imperfective is a grammatical aspect used to describe a situation viewed with internal structure, such as ongoing, habitual, repeated, and similar semantic roles, whether that situation occurs in the past, present, or future...
(verbs depicting ongoing, habitual or repeated action; also known as the present system) and perfective
Perfective aspect
The perfective aspect , sometimes called the aoristic aspect, is a grammatical aspect used to describe a situation viewed as a simple whole, whether that situation occurs in the past, present, or future. The perfective aspect is equivalent to the aspectual component of past perfective forms...
(verbs depicting a completed action or actions viewed as an entire process; also known as the aorist system).
The terminology around the stative, perfective and imperfective aspects can be confusing. The use of these terms here is based on the reconstructed meanings of the corresponding forms in PIE and the terms used broadly in linguistics to refer to aspects with these meanings. In traditional PIE terminology, the forms described here as stative, perfective and imperfective are known as the perfect, aorist and present systems. The present/imperfective system in turn can be conjugated in two tenses, described here as present and past but traditionally known as present and imperfect. The traditional terms are based on the names of the corresponding forms in Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
(also applied to Sanskrit), and are still commonly encountered. Furthermore, there is a separate secondary-verb form commonly known as the "stative" and marked by a suffix *-eh₁-, which has no connection with the stative/perfect described here.
The following table shows the two systems of terminology.
| Process | Aspect | Aspect (traditional name) | Tense | Tense (traditional name) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stative | Stative | Perfect system | (unmarked) | Perfect tense |
| Eventive | Perfective | Aorist system | (unmarked) | Aorist tense |
| Imperfective | Present system | Present | Present tense | |
| Past | Imperfect tense | |||
Each verbal lexeme
Lexeme
A lexeme is an abstract unit of morphological analysis in linguistics, that roughly corresponds to a set of forms taken by a single word. For example, in the English language, run, runs, ran and running are forms of the same lexeme, conventionally written as RUN...
, especially eventive verbs, took on its own "root aspect", ostensibly according to the semantics of the root, although there are numerous unexplained surprises. Verbal roots whose default meaning was durative, ongoing, or iterative were generally imperfective, while roots whose meaning was punctiliar or discrete were perfective. Affixation of various types was used both to root certain verbs into their default aspects and to switch their aspects. A verb needed no derivational markers when functioning within its own root aspect, but many, if not most, roots were hyper-characterized with an aspect marker in order to emphasize their root aspects: the s-aorist, retained most notably in Greek, in which an -s- is affixed between the root and the personal ending is an example of a marker that typically characterized an aorist. Examples of aspect switching affixes include -éye/o, sk' e/o, and the nasal infix
Nasal infix
The nasal infix is a reconstructed nasal consonant or syllable that was inserted into the stem of a word in the Proto-Indo-European language, that has reflexes in several modern European languages...
, all of which were used to derive present and imperfect verbs from non-present tense verbs. Importantly, the Indo-European verb was not durchkonjugiert ("through-conjugated"); several aspect switchers were available to be added to the root, but while certain roots show a preference for the same markers in multiple daughter languages, it nonetheless appears that particular markers were not exclusively assigned to any root.
For example, the basic word for "stand", *steh2-, was a root aorist; therefore, the word in its default aspect had the sense of "come to a standing position; to rise from a sitting position". In order to speak about "standing" in a present, durative sense ("be in a standing position"), the root aorist required a derivational marker to put it into the imperfective aspect. Most often, this aspect switcher was reduplication (cf. Greek ἵστημι, Sankskrit tíṣṭhati), although Germanic suggests a nasal infix or suffix was also used for this root (Gothic present ik standa vs. preterite ik stoþ), at least by a later period.
In the indicative mood an imperfective verb was conjugated in two tenses
Grammatical tense
A tense is a grammatical category that locates a situation in time, to indicate when the situation takes place.Bernard Comrie, Aspect, 1976:6:...
: present
Present tense
The present tense is a grammatical tense that locates a situation or event in present time. This linguistic definition refers to a concept that indicates a feature of the meaning of a verb...
and past
Past tense
The past tense is a grammatical tense that places an action or situation in the past of the current moment , or prior to some specified time that may be in the speaker's past, present, or future...
. If the perfect developed before the end of the common PIE period, it was near the end. Verbs had at least four moods: indicative, imperative
Imperative mood
The imperative mood expresses commands or requests as a grammatical mood. These commands or requests urge the audience to act a certain way. It also may signal a prohibition, permission, or any other kind of exhortation.- Morphology :...
, subjunctive
Subjunctive mood
In grammar, the subjunctive mood is a verb mood typically used in subordinate clauses to express various states of irreality such as wish, emotion, possibility, judgment, opinion, necessity, or action that has not yet occurred....
and optative
Optative mood
The optative mood is a grammatical mood that indicates a wish or hope. It is similar to the cohortative mood, and closely related to the subjunctive mood....
, as well as possibly the injunctive
Injunctive mood
The injunctive mood was a mood in Sanskrit characterized by secondary endings but no augment, and usually looked like an augmentless aorist or imperfect. It typically stood in a main clause and had a subjunctive or imperative meaning; for example, it could indicate intention, e.g. "Indra's heroic...
, reconstructible from Vedic Sanskrit and Homeric; two voices: active
Active voice
Active voice is a grammatical voice common in many of the world's languages. It is the unmarked voice for clauses featuring a transitive verb in nominative–accusative languages, including English and most other Indo-European languages....
and mediopassive
Mediopassive voice
The mediopassive voice is a grammatical voice which subsumes the meanings of both the middle voice and the passive voice.Languages of the Indo-European family typically have two or three voices of the three: active, middle, and passive. "Mediopassive" may be used to describe a category that covers...
; three persons
Grammatical person
Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...
: first, second, and third; and three numbers
Grammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
: singular
Grammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
, dual, and plural
Plural
In linguistics, plurality or [a] plural is a concept of quantity representing a value of more-than-one. Typically applied to nouns, a plural word or marker is used to distinguish a value other than the default quantity of a noun, which is typically one...
. Verbs were also marked by a highly developed system of participle
Participle
In linguistics, a participle is a word that shares some characteristics of both verbs and adjectives. It can be used in compound verb tenses or voices , or as a modifier...
s, one for each combination of tense and mood, and an assorted array of verbal noun
Verbal noun
In linguistics, the verbal noun turns a verb into a noun and corresponds to the infinitive in English language usage. In English the infinitive form of the verb is formed when preceded by to, e.g...
s and adjectival formations.
Stative
The stative aspect signified a current state of being. It was traditionally known as perfect, a name which was assigned based upon the Latin tense before the stative nature of the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) form was fully known. While Latin conflated the concept with tense, in PIE there was no association with any particular tense. The stative aspect was marked formally with its own personal endings, which differed from the eventives by a root in the singular in o-grade, but elsewhere in zero-grade, and typically by reduplicationReduplication
Reduplication in linguistics is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word is repeated exactly or with a slight change....
.
In many daughter languages, the stative took on a meaning that implied a previous action that had caused the current state, a meaning which resulted in the Greek perfect. Eventually, by shifting emphasis to the inchoative action, an action that was just started or a state that was just begun prior to the resulting state, the stative generally developed into a past tense (as in Germanic, Latin, and later, Greek). The original present sense of the IE stative is seen in the Germanic preterite-present verbs such as Gothic wait "I know" (< PIE *, originally "I am in a state resulting from having seen/found"; cf. Latin vidēre "to see", Sanskrit vinátti "he finds", with exact cognates in Sanskrit veda and Greek οἴδα, all of which retain their essentially present tense meaning "I know".
Eventive
The perfective and imperfective aspect classes are together known as eventive, or verbs that depict events, to distinguish them from stative (verbs that depict a state of being). The perfective aspect, also known as perfectus (Latin "finished") or the aorist, was used for completed actions or actions viewed as an entire process. The imperfective aspect was used to describe continuous, durative actions. These eventive aspects were originally not marked for tense; however, the option arose to mark current action with the (later grammaticalized) addition of the hic-et-nunc (Latin "here and now") particle -i to the personal endings of verbs of imperfective aspect. This created a tense contrast among eventive verbs: the unmarked past (durative imperfect tense and non-durative, punctiliar aorist) vs. the present tense marked with terminal affixation of -i in the singular or -s in the plural.- Stative class (non-eventive)
- "Perfect"
- Perfective class (eventive)
- "Aorist"
- Imperfective class (eventive)
- "Present"
- "Imperfect"
Mood
The moods of PIE included indicative, imperative, optative, and subjunctive.| Indicative | Imperative | Optative | Subjunctive | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Function | action described as fact | commands | wishes, hopes | action described as completely theoretical |
| Characteristics | default mood | personal endings differing from indicative; not conjugated in the first person | ablauting -ih1~yeh1- affixed to root; personal endings the same as imperfect/aorist indicative verbs (no -i) | thematic (e/o) suffix affixed to root; personal endings the same as present indicative verbs (with suffixed -i) |
The place of the injunctive mood
Injunctive mood
The injunctive mood was a mood in Sanskrit characterized by secondary endings but no augment, and usually looked like an augmentless aorist or imperfect. It typically stood in a main clause and had a subjunctive or imperative meaning; for example, it could indicate intention, e.g. "Indra's heroic...
, of obscure function, is debated. It takes the form of the bare root in e-grade with the omission of the augment
Augment (linguistics)
In linguistics, the augment is a syllable added to the beginning of the word in certain Indo-European languages, most notably Greek, Armenian, and the Indo-Iranian languages such as Sanskrit, to form the past tenses.-Indo-European languages:...
and the hic et nunc particle, which were both tense markers. This causes Fortson (among others) to suggest that the use of the injunctive was for gnomic expressions (as in Homer) or in otherwise timeless statements (as in Vedic).
Conjugations
PIE, like many languages, had a set of conjugationGrammatical conjugation
In linguistics, conjugation is the creation of derived forms of a verb from its principal parts by inflection . Conjugation may be affected by person, number, gender, tense, aspect, mood, voice, or other grammatical categories...
al classes for verbs, called "conjugations". In many modern languages, and to a fair extent in Latin, each verb lexeme belongs to a particular conjugation which determines all verb forms. In PIE, however, a verb lexeme would belong to one conjugation for each of the three aspects (imperfective, perfective, stative), with no clear relations among them. This leads to the system of describing a verb by its principal parts
Principal parts
In language learning, the principal parts of a verb are those forms that a student must memorize in order to be able to conjugate the verb through all its forms.- English :...
, one for each of the conjugational classes that a verb belongs to. (Latin has four principal parts, Ancient Greek six, and Sanskrit at least ten.)
For example, in Sanskrit, there are at least ten present conjugations, seven aorist conjugations, and five perfect conjugations, and in general, knowing the present conjugation of a verb does not help in identifying the aorist or perfect conjugation, and vice-versa. Furthermore, especially in Greek and Sanskrit, many verbs are missing some principal parts, and some verbs can be conjugated in some aspects according to multiple conjugations, sometimes with different meanings (see the above example with the Greek verb peithō).
This can also be seen in the third conjugation of Latin, which includes most verbs directly inherited from PIE. In the Latin third conjugation, verbs in the present tense can be either normal or i-stem, while verbs in the perfect can be formed in any of six or so different ways, and there is no general relation between the two.
Primary vs. secondary verbs
A fundamental distinction in PIE was between primary and secondary verbs, although it is not always clear whether a particular verb was originally primary or secondary. Primary verbs were formed directly from PIE roots, while secondary verbs were formed either from primary verbs (so-called deverbal verbs) or from nouns (denominal verbs or denominative verbs) or adjectives (deadjectival verbs). (In PIE, nouns and adjectives had the same markings, and the same processes were used to form verbs from both nouns and adjectives, so the term denominative verb is often used to incorporate formations based on both nouns and adjectives.) Particular processes of forming secondary verbs had particular meanings such as causativeCausative
In linguistics, a causative is a form that indicates that a subject causes someone or something else to do or be something, or causes a change in state of a non-volitional event....
, intensive
Intensive
In grammar, an intensive word form is one which denotes stronger or more forceful action relative to the root on which the intensive is built. Intensives are usually lexical formations, but there may be a regular process for forming intensives from a root...
, and desiderative
Desiderative
In linguistics, a desiderative form is one that has the meaning of "wanting to X". Desiderative forms are often verbs, derived from a more basic verb through a process of morphological derivation.-Sanskrit:...
. The formation of secondary verbs was part of the derivational
Derivation (linguistics)
In linguistics, derivation is the process of forming a new word on the basis of an existing word, e.g. happi-ness and un-happy from happy, or determination from determine...
system rather than the inflection
Inflection
In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case...
al system, as they existed only for certain verbs and did not necessarily have completely predictable meanings (compare the remnants of causative constructions in English — to fall vs. to fell, to sit vs. to set, to rise vs. to raise and to rear). The above-mentioned verbal nouns and adjectives were likewise part of the derivational system (compare the formation of verbal nouns in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, using -er, -ing, etc.), although in many daughter languages they were incorporated into the inflectional system.
In PIE, secondary verbs existed only in the imperfective system, and had no stative or perfective forms. Even some of the primary verbs were missing stative or perfective forms, or had forms with unpredictable meanings, and many primary verbs had multiple ways of forming some or all of their aspects, sometimes with differences of meaning among the different forms. Furthermore, evidence from the Rig Veda (the earliest attestation of Sanskrit) indicates that secondary verbs in PIE were not conjugated in the subjunctive or optative moods.
Collectively, all of this indicates that in PIE, especially earlier on, all of the aspects and moods were part of the derivational rather than inflectional system. That is, the various "tenses", moods and such were originally independent lexical formations, similar to the way that verbal nouns in English are formed unpredictably from different suffixes, sometimes with two or more formations that may differ in meaning: e.g. reference vs. referral, transference vs. transferral, recitation vs. recital, or delivery vs. deliverance. Furthermore, a basic constraint in the verbal system prohibited applying a derived form to an already-derived form.
Development of the conjugational system
Only later, and gradually, were these various derivational forms combined into a single set of inflectional paradigms. This process proceeded in steps:- The first step was the combination of different forms with similar meanings into a system of three major aspects. The result of this was the so-called "Cowgill-Rix" system described above, which was completed in late PIE, shortly after Tocharian had split off and well after the Anatolian split. At this stage, formations that originally had various purposes had their semantics largely harmonized into one of the aspect classes, and the system of mood marking was developed. These formations, however, were still separate lexical verbs, still sometimes with idiosyncratic meanings, and for a given aspect class a root could still form multiple or no verbs in that class. This is the stage visible in early Vedic Sanskrit.
- The next step was to prune multiple formations, fill in the gaps and combine the formations under a single lexical entry, with a clear distinction between inflectional and derivational forms. At this stage a lexical entry for a single verb was defined by a set of principal partsPrincipal partsIn language learning, the principal parts of a verb are those forms that a student must memorize in order to be able to conjugate the verb through all its forms.- English :...
, each of which (approximately) defined the conjugational class of the given verb in the given tense/aspect. This stage was in process in Vedic Sanskrit and was largely completed in Ancient Greek, although even in this language there are still gaps as well as occasional multiple formations with idiosyncratic meanings. - The final step was to regularize the formations into "conjugations" that applied across the whole system, so that a verb belonged to a single conjugational class rather than a set of classes. This stage was partly complete in Latin, in particular in regards to the -āre, -ēre, -īre (first, second, fourth) conjugations. The older system, however, is still clearly visible in the -ere class, with each verb in this class, and some in the other classes, needing to be defined by four separate principal parts.
In Proto-Germanic, this process seemed to have been largely completed, with only a few relic formations such as j-presents and n-infix presents remaining as "irregular" verbs. However, a clear distinction was still maintained between primary and secondary verbs, since the lack of multiple aspect stems in the latter eventually led to the creation of the weak verbsGermanic weak verbIn Germanic languages, including English, weak verbs are by far the largest group of verbs, which are therefore often regarded as the norm, though historically they are not the oldest or most original group.-General description:...
, with most of the original primary verbs becoming strong verbsGermanic strong verbIn the Germanic languages, a strong verb is one which marks its past tense by means of ablaut. In English, these are verbs like sing, sang, sung...
. A small minority of statives retained their perfect/stative inflection, becoming the preterite-present verbs.
The gradual tendency in all of the daughter languages was to proceed through the stages just described, creating a single conjugational system that applied to all tenses and aspects and allowing all verbs, including secondary verbs, to be conjugated in all inflectional categories. Generally, the primary verbs were largely all lumped together into a single conjugation (e.g. the Latin -ere conjugation), while different secondary-verb formations produced all other conjugations; for the most part, only these latter conjugations were productive in the daughter languages. In most languages, the original distinction between primary and secondary verbs was obscured to some extent, with some primary verbs scattered among the nominally secondary/productive conjugations. Germanic is perhaps the family with the clearest primary/secondary distinction: Nearly all "strong verbs" are primary in origin while nearly all "weak verbs" are secondary, with the two classes clearly distinguished in their past-tense and past-participle formations.
Primary present-tense verbs
- Type 1: Simple athematic verbs
- Type 1a (normal) with alternating normal-grade, root accent and zero-grade, ending accent
- Type 1b (Narten) with mostly root accent and alternating lengthened/normal grade (according to an alternative view, fixed normal grade throughout)
- Type 2: Simple thematic verbs
- Type 2a: Stem-stressed, normal-grade
- Type 2b: Theme-stressed, zero-grade ("tudati class")
- Type 3: Reduplicating verbs
- Type 3a: Athematic, alternating grade and accent as in type 1a
- Type 3b: Thematic, with fixed zero-grade and theme stress
- Type 4: Nasal infix/suffix verbs, originally athematic as in type 3a, thematized in many languages according to type 3b. In athematic type, full-grade forms have full grade and accent on the infix/suffix; the root itself is always unstressed, zero-grade.
- Type 4a: Infix nasal before final consonant of root
- Type 4b: Same as 4a, but consonant is a laryngeal; evolution in daughter languages divergent from type 4a
- Type 4c: -nu- suffix formed as if a -w- were added to the root and then a nasal infixed according to type 4a; often forms secondary verbs in the daughter languages.
- Type 5: Primary -y- verbs, thematic
- Type 5a: Full-grade, stem-stressed, mostly transitive
- Type 5b: Zero-grade, ending-stressed, mostly intransitive and in middle voice
- Type 9: Primary -sḱ- verbs, thematic
- Type 9a: Simple -sḱ- verbs
- Type 9b: Reduplicated -sḱ- verbs
- Type 11: Primary -s- verbs, thematic
Secondary present-tense verbs
- Type 6: Factitive/denominative in -y-, thematic unless otherwise indicated
- Type 6a: Denominative in -y- to nouns with ablauting stems; accent on theme.
- Type 6b: Factitive in -eh₂-(y)- to adjectives. Originally (in Hittite) athematic without the -y-, later thematized with -y- suffix.
- Type 6c: Denominative in -eh₂-y- to nouns and adjectives. Apparently began as type-6a denominatives to -eh₂ nouns, but in all daughters reanalyzed as a suffix and formed to multiple types of nouns and adjectives.
- Type 6d: Factitive in -oy- to adjectives. Possibly nonexistent in PIE.
- Type 6e: Denominative in -ey- to nouns and adjectives. Apparently began as type-6a denominatives to -os, -om nouns, but in all daughters reanalyzed as a suffix and formed to multiple types of nouns and adjectives. Accented either as -eyé- (early Vedic) or -éye- (later, elsewhere?).
- Type 7: Causative/iterative in -éy-, with o-grade root.
- Type 8: Stative in -eh₁-(y)-. As for -eh₂- factitives, originally (in Hittite) athematic without the -y-, later thematized with -y- suffix.
- Type 9: Inchoative etc. in -sḱ-, thematic
- Type 9a, 9b: Primary -sḱ- verbs, without/with reduplication (see above)
- Type 9c: Stative inchoative in -eh₁-sḱ-
- Type 9d: Other formations in -sḱ-
- Type 10: Desiderative in -(h₁)s-, mostly thematic; -h₁- usually disappears after stops
- Type 10a: Simple desiderative in -(h₁)s-
- Type 10b: Reduplicated desiderative in -(h₁)s-
- Type 10c: Simple desiderative in -(h₁)s-y-
Table of outcomes of present classes
NOTE: A blank space means the reflex of the given class in the given language is undetermined. If no reflexes exist, put "no" in the space.| PIE | Sanskrit | Greek | Latin | Germ | OCS | Lith | OIr | Arm | Alb | Toch | Hitt |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1: -mi | class II (130) | two-syllable -mi verbs (9) | 4 or 5 verbs | "to be" | Class V (4 -mĭ verbs) | -mi verbs in OLith. | 3 verbs | class I | common | ||
| 2: -oh₂ | 2a: class I; 2b: class VI | many -ō verbs | many -ere verbs | most strong verbs | class I | class B I | class II; class III, IV (deponent) | very few verbs | |||
| 3a: Ci-CéC-mi | class III | a few prominent -mi verbs | |||||||||
| 3b: Ci-CC-oh₂ | relics | relics | a few verbs | ||||||||
| 4a: CR̥-néC-mi | class VII | CV-n-C-ánō verbs | CV-n-Cō verbs | relics | relics | n-infix verbs | class B III | -an- verbs | class VII | causative -nin- verbs? | |
| 4b: CR̥-néH-mi | class IX | -nēmi verbs | a few -n verbs | 4th weak (fientive) | class II (semelfactive -nǫ- verbs) | class B IV | class VI | no? | |||
| 4c: CR̥-néu-mi | class V, VIII | -nūmi verbs | relics | relics | class B V | causative -nu- verbs | |||||
| 5: primary -yoh₂ | 5a: class IV; 5b: passive verbs | many *-Cyō verbs | 3rd decl. i-stem; part of 4th decl. | strong verbs with -j- present | a few -ī/ī verbs | many verbs? | class B II | 5b: passive -i- verbs | |||
| 6a: denom. -Cyoh₂ | -yáti verbs | many *-Cyō verbs (e.g. -ainō, -izdō, -eiō); -iō, -uō | class XII from n-nouns | ||||||||
| 6b/c: factitive/denom. -eh₂-yoh₂: usually very productive | -āyati verbs | -aō contract verbs | -āre verbs (1st decl.) | 2nd weak in -ō- | -aj/a- verbs (class III Aa) | weak a-verbs (class A I) | 6b: athem. factitive | ||||
| 6d: factitive -o-yoh₂? | -oō contract verbs? | factitive 3rd weak verbs? | "a class of Anatolian denominatives"? | ||||||||
| 6e: denom. -e-yoh₂: usually very productive | class X; denom. -a-yáti verbs | many -eō contract verbs | many -īre, a few -ēre verbs | denom. 1st weak | denom. -ī/ī verbs | denom. weak i-verbs (class A II) | |||||
| 7: caus./iter. CoC-é-yoh₂ | caus. verbs (very productive) | CoC-eō verbs: some iter., a few caus. | -ēre caus. verbs | caus. 1st weak (common) | caus./iter. -ī/ī verbs | caus. weak i- verbs (class A II) | |||||
| 8: stative -eh₁- | -(th)ē- aorist passive | most 2nd decl. verbs | most 3rd weak verbs | -ěj/ě- verbs; impf. -ě- > -a- suffix | |||||||
| 9a,b: primary -sḱ- | 9a: 13 -cchati verbs | 9a: relics; 9b: several verbs | 9a: several verbs; 9b: only discō "learn" | ||||||||
| 9c: -eh₁-sḱ- | stative inchoative in -ēscere (productive) | a few -oh verbs | |||||||||
| 9d: other -sḱ- | Homeric habitual past -esk- verbs | inchoative in -(ī)scere (productive) | c`-aorist, -ic`-subjunctive | class IX in B; causative in -ṣṣ- (very productive) | habitual, durative in -šk- (very productive) | ||||||
| 10a,b: desiderative -(h₁)s- | esp. 10b: desid. verbs (productive) | 10a: future tense | relics | no? | 10b: future tense | ||||||
| 10c: desid. -(h₁)sy- | future tense | no? | no? | relic: byšęštĭ | future tense | Gaulish future tense | |||||
| 11: -s- | relics | relics | relics | relics | relics | relics | relics | relics | relics | class VIII esp. in A | |
Aorist classes
- Type 1: Root aorist
- Type 2: Sigmatic (-s-) aorist, perhaps with Narten-style lengthened/normal-grade alternation
- Type 3: Thematic aorist, often with zero-grade root
- Type 4: Reduplicated aorist, often with a causative meaning
Table of outcomes of aorist classes
NOTE: A blank space means the reflex of the given class in the given language is undetermined. If no reflexes exist, put "no" in the space.| PIE | Sanskrit | Greek | Latin | Germ | OCS | Lith | OIr | Arm | Alb | Toch | Hitt |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1: root | class I (predominant in early Vedic; c. 130 attested verbs) | root aorist: well-attested | no | no? | a few aorists? | a few presents | |||||
| 2: -s- | classes IV, V, VI, VII | first aorist | s-perfect (to many primary -ere verbs) | no | sigmatic, productive aorist | no | s- and t-preterite; in subj., s-subjunctive | possibly -sh- aorist | |||
| 3: thematic | class II (more common in later Vedic) | second aorist | "aorist-present" verbs (relics) | "root aorist" to class I, II | some aorists | ||||||
| 4: redup. | class III (to causatives) | aorist to causatives | in Toch. A, aorist to causatives | ||||||||
Other verbal formations
NOTE: A blank space means the reflex of the given class in the given language is undetermined. If no reflexes exist, put "no" in the space.| PIE | Sanskrit | Greek | Latin | Germ | OCS | Lith | OIr | Arm | Alb | Toch | Hitt |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| perfect: Ce-CoC- | perfect tense (in Vedic, with present meaning) | perfect tense (often with present meaning, esp. in Homer) | reduplicated perfect (many verbs); a few perfect-presents | preterite tense; preterite-presents (15 verbs) | no? | no? | redup. preterite | no | only in perfect ptc. | ḫi-presents | |
| imperfect | imperfect tense (in Vedic, with aorist meaning) | imperfect tense | no? | only dō- "do" | no? | no? | no? | aorist, imperfect | singular imperfect | no? | preterite tense? |
| subjunctive | subjunctive (future meaning) | subjunctive | future of 3rd, 4th decl. | no | no? | a-subj.?; s-subjunctive < aorist subj. | no? | ||||
| optative | optative | optative | im-subj. to athematic verbs | subjunctive; also wiljan "want" | imperative | imperative ("permissive"?) | no | optative; plural imperfect | imperfect in B | no | |
| imperative | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | no | no | yes | yes | yes | yes |
| -nt- participle: usually active present ptc. | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | only relics | no | meaning like a t-participle | ||
| -mh₁n- participle: usually mediopassive present ptc. | yes | yes | only relics | no? | present passive ptc. in *-mo- | yes in OPrus; present passive ptc. in *-mo- | only relics | present passive ptc. in *-m-? | |||
| -wos- participle: usually active past ptc. | yes | yes | -v- perfects | no | yes | yes | no | yes | |||
| -t- past participle (passive for trans. verbs, active for intrans.) | to most verbs | yes, adjectival force? | yes | to weak verbs | yes | yes | passive preterite | no | no | ||
| -n- past participle (same meaning as t-participle) | to some verbs | only relics | to strong verbs | yes | only relics | only relics | no? | no | |||
| -l- past participle | no | no | no | no | active "resultative" | no | no | passive | no | Toch. A gerundive | no |
| middle voice | in -i- | in -i- | in -r-, passive meaning | in -i-, passive meaning | no? | no? | in -r- | in -i- | in -i- | in -r- | in -r- |
| deponent (middle-only) verbs | yes | yes | yes | "to call" (innovative) | yes | ||||||
| dual verbs | yes | 2nd/3rd person only | no | 1st/2nd person only | yes | yes | no (nouns only) | ||||
Proposed endings
The primary distinction in verbs between the different ways of forming the present tenses was between thematic classes, with a thematic vowel or before the endings, and athematic classes, with endings added directly to the root. Traditional accounts say first-person singular is the only form where the endings differed, except for the presence or absence of the thematic vowel. Newer accounts by and are similar, with the proto-forms modernized using laryngeal notation. Sihler, however, notes that many of the most archaic languages have third-person singular forms missing a t and proposes an alternative t-less thematic ending along with the standard ending. GreekGreek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
and Balto-Slavic have t-less forms in thematic actives, whereas Vedic
Vedic
Vedic may refer to:* the Vedas, the oldest preserved Indic texts** Vedic Sanskrit, the language of these texts** Vedic period, during which these texts were produced** Vedic pantheon of gods mentioned in Vedas/vedic period...
and Hittite
Hittite language
Hittite is the extinct language once spoken by the Hittites, a people who created an empire centred on Hattusa in north-central Anatolia...
have t-less athematic middle forms. , uses the t-less forms as the starting point for a radical rethinking of the thematic endings, based primarily on Greek and Lithuanian
Lithuanian language
Lithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they...
. These proposals are still controversial, however.
| Athematic | Thematic | Athematic | Thematic | Athematic | Thematic | Athematic | Thematic | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Singular Grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions .... |
1st Grammatical person Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns... |
||||||||
| 2nd | |||||||||
| 3rd | |||||||||
| Dual | 1st | ||||||||
| 2nd | |||||||||
| 3rd | |||||||||
| Plural | 1st | ||||||||
| 2nd | |||||||||
| 3rd |
A third conjugation has been proposed in Jay Jasanoff
Jay Jasanoff
Jay Harold Jasanoff is an American linguist and Indo-Europeanist, best known for his h₂e-conjugation theory of the Proto-Indo-European verb. He teaches Indo-European linguistics and historical linguistics at Harvard University....
's
This twofold differentiation of personal endings (see below) was later fully grammaticalized as tense markers. Misleadingly, the earlier Indo-European grammarians named the clearly derived present endings "primary endings".
The following is an example paradigm, based on , of the verb , "leave behind" (athematic nasal-infixed present, root aorist, reduplicated perfect). Two sets of endings are provided for the primary medio-passive forms (subjunctive and primary indicative) — the central dialects (Indo-Iranian, Greek, Germanic, Balto-Slavic, Albanian, and Armenian) use forms ending in , while the peripheral dialects (Italic, Celtic, Hittite, and Tocharian) use forms ending in , which are generally considered the original forms.
Ringe makes certain assumptions about synchronic
Synchronic
Synchronic may refer to:*Synchronicity*Synchronic analysis, in linguistics * Synchronic, an adjective referring to a quality of music....
PIE phonology that are not universally accepted:
- Sievers' LawSievers' lawSievers' law in Indo-European linguistics accounts for the pronunciation of a consonant cluster with a glide before a vowel as it was affected by the phonetics of the preceding syllable. Specifically it refers to the alternation between and , and possibly and , in Indo-European languages...
applies in all positions and to all resonants, including . - There are no vocalic allophones of laryngeals.
- Word-final becomes when adjacent to a voiced segment (i.e. vowel or voiced consonant).
The effects of the generally-accepted synchronic boukólos rule
Boukólos rule
The boukólos rule is a phonological rule of the Proto-Indo-European language . It states that a labiovelar stop dissimilates to an ordinary velar stop next to the vowel or its corresponding glide...
whereby becomes next to or are shown.
| Present stem, active | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1ary indic. | 2ary indic. | subjunctive | optative | imperative | |
| 1 sg. | — | ||||
| 2 sg. | |||||
| 3 sg. | |||||
| 1 du. | — | ||||
| 2 du. | |||||
| 3 du. | |||||
| 1 pl. | — | ||||
| 2 pl. | |||||
| 3 pl. | |||||
| participle | |||||
| Present stem, mediopassive | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1ary indic. (central) | 1ary indic. (peripheral) | 2ary indic. | subjunctive (central) | subjunctive (peripheral) | optative | imperative | |
| 1 sg. | — | ||||||
| 2 sg. | ? | ||||||
| 3 sg. | ? | ||||||
| 1 du. | — | ||||||
| 2 du. | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| 3 du. | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| 1 pl. | — | ||||||
| 2 pl. | |||||||
| 3 pl. | ? | ||||||
| participle | |||||||
| Aorist stem, active | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2ary indic. | subjunctive | optative | imperative | |
| 1 sg. | — | |||
| 2 sg. | ||||
| 3 sg. | ||||
| 1 du. | — | |||
| 2 du. | ||||
| 3 du. | ||||
| 1 pl. | — | |||
| 2 pl. | ||||
| 3 pl. | ||||
| participle | ||||
| Aorist stem, mediopassive | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2ary indic. | subjunctive (central) | subjunctive (peripheral) | optative | imperative | |
| 1 sg. | — | ||||
| 2 sg. | ? | ||||
| 3 sg. | ? | ||||
| 1 du. | — | ||||
| 2 du. | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| 3 du. | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| 1 pl. | — | ||||
| 2 pl. | |||||
| 3 pl. | ? | ||||
| participle | |||||
| Perfect stem, active | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| indicative | subjunctive | optative | imperative | |
| 1 sg. | — | |||
| 2 sg. | ?, | |||
| 3 sg. | ? | |||
| 1 du. | — | |||
| 2 du. | ? | ? | ||
| 3 du. | ? | ? | ||
| 1 pl. | — | |||
| 2 pl. | ? | |||
| 3 pl. | ? | |||
| participle | ||||
The following is an example paradigm, based on , of the verb "carry" in the simple thematic present tense. Two sets of endings are provided for the primary mediopassive forms, as described above.
The above assumptions about PIE phonology apply, in addition to a rule that deletes laryngeals which occur in the sequence -oRHC or -oRH#, where R stands for any resonant, H any laryngeal, C any consonant and # the end of a word. The most important effect of this rule is to delete most occurrences of in the thematic optative.
| Present stem, active | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1ary indic. | 2ary indic. | subjunctive | optative | imperative | |
| 1 sg. | — | ||||
| 2 sg. | |||||
| 3 sg. | |||||
| 1 du. | — | ||||
| 2 du. | |||||
| 3 du. | |||||
| 1 pl. | — | ||||
| 2 pl. | |||||
| 3 pl. | |||||
| participle | |||||
| Present stem, mediopassive | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1ary indic. (central) | 1ary indic. (peripheral) | 2ary indic. | subjunctive (central) | subjunctive (peripheral) | optative | imperative | |
| 1 sg. | — | ||||||
| 2 sg. | ? | ||||||
| 3 sg. | ? | ||||||
| 1 du. | — | ||||||
| 2 du. | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| 3 du. | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| 1 pl. | — | ||||||
| 2 pl. | |||||||
| 3 pl. | ? | ||||||
| participle | (< ) | ||||||
Post-PIE developments
In Greek, the difference between the present, aorist, and perfect, when used outside of the indicative (i.e. in the subjunctive, optative, imperative, infinitive, and participles) is almost entirely one of grammatical aspectGrammatical aspect
In linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a verb is a grammatical category that defines the temporal flow in a given action, event, or state, from the point of view of the speaker...
, not of tense. That is, the aorist refers to a simple action, the present to an ongoing action, and the perfect to a state resulting from a previous action. An aorist infinitive or imperative, for example, does not refer to a past action, and in fact for many verbs (e.g. "kill") would likely be more common than a present infinitive or imperative. (In some participial constructions, however, an aorist participle can have either a tensal or aspectual meaning.) It is assumed that this distinction of aspect was the original significance of the PIE tenses, rather than any actual tense distinction, and that tense distinctions were originally indicated by means of adverbs, as in Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
. It appears that by late PIE, the different tenses had already acquired a tensal meaning in particular contexts, as in Greek. In later Indo-European languages, this became dominant.
The meanings of the three tenses in the oldest Vedic Sanskrit
Vedic Sanskrit
Vedic Sanskrit is an old Indo-Aryan language. It is an archaic form of Sanskrit, an early descendant of Proto-Indo-Iranian. It is closely related to Avestan, the oldest preserved Iranian language...
differs somewhat from their meanings in Greek, and thus it is not clear whether the PIE meanings corresponded exactly to the Greek meanings. In particular, the Vedic imperfect had a meaning that was close to the Greek aorist, and the Vedic aorist had a meaning that was close to the Greek perfect. Meanwhile, the Vedic perfect was often indistinguishable from a present tense (Whitney 1889). In moods other than the indicative, the present, aorist, and perfect were almost indistinguishable from each other.
The lack of semantic distinction between different grammatical forms in a literary language often indicates that some of these forms no longer existed in the spoken language of the time. In fact, in Classical Sanskrit, the subjunctive dropped out, as did all tenses of the optative and imperative other than the present; meanwhile, in the indicative the imperfect, aorist and perfect became largely interchangeable, and in later Classical Sanskrit, all three could be freely replaced by a participial construction. All of these developments appear to reflect changes in spoken Middle Indo-Aryan; among the past tenses, for example, only the aorist survived into early Middle Indo-Aryan, which was later displaced by a participial past tense.
See also
- Indo-European copulaIndo-European copulaA feature common to all Indo-European languages is the presence of a verb corresponding to the English verb to be. Though in some languages, such as Russian, it is vestigial, it is present nonetheless in atrophied forms or derivatives.-General features:...
- Lexikon der indogermanischen VerbenLexikon der Indogermanischen VerbenThe Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben is an etymological dictionary of the Proto-Indo-European verb. The first edition appeared in 1998, edited by Helmut Rix. A second edition followed in 2001. The book is based on the Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch by Julius Pokorny...
(Lexicon of the Indo-European Verbs)