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Proto-Indo-Aryan
I. Accent retraction in non-passive -ya-presents. Accentual differentiation of -ya-passives and (middle) non-passive -ya-presents
II. Accent shift in the type mriyate. *Cf-ia—> Criya-
Old Indo-Aryan (Vedic) dialects
III. Accent shift in some (middle) non-passive -ya-presents (in the dialects of the AV, MS-KS and SB)
V0-iá-
V0-iá-te
(e.g. hanyáte 'is killed')
Vé-ia-te (e.g. mányate 'thinks')
V0-iá-te
(hanyáte)
Criyá-te (mriyáte)
Vé-ia-te (mányate)
V0-iá-te
(hanyáte)
Criyá-te (mriyáte)
V0-iá-te
(mucyáte AV, MS)
Vé-i
ia-
(mányate)
te
te
Alexei Kassian
Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow)
Some considerations on Vedic -ya-presents
The paper by L. Kulikov consists of two parts: 1) detailed discussion upon the peculiarities of some specific Vedic verbal stems, and 2) reconstruction of the -ya-present pattern for Proto-Indo-Aryan. Below I will touch upon the second — comparative — portion of the paper (§5).
Kulikov discusses two functions of the Vedic -ya-suffix: medial present tense of the 4th class with nonpassive intransitive function, i.e. the V'-ya-te pattern (however, the frequent active V'-ya-'1 pattern is excluded from the analysis) and the regular passive forms of the V-ya-te pattern. The author concludes that the original Proto-Indo-Aryan pattern of the middle voice was *V-ya-te, which later split into two accentual and semantic types.1
1 Kulikov labels this proto-level as "Proto-Indo-Aryan", but, in fact, some OPers. and Avest. evidence may prove that the
The only explication of such a split proposed by Kulikov is J. Kurytowicz's idea that non-passive mid-
grammaticalization of the ya-suffix as an exponent of the passive voice goes back to the Proto-Indo-Iranian level. On the contrary, if we reject OPers. and Avest. data, an accurate term should be "Proto-Vedic", not Proto-Indo-Aryan in general. On the other hand, the Dardic language Shina shows the same grammatical-ized passive voice in -izh- (= -ij-), Bailey 1924: 29, Schmidt & Ko-histani 2008: 145 ff., 194 f. This fact should prove the Proto-Indo-Aryan antiquity of such a grammaticalization, if Shina -izh- does indeed contain *-ya- (as is suspected by V. A. Dybo, see his reply below, although I would rather suppose that Shina -izh- reflects an innovative formation in Dardic). Below, for the sake of convenience, I will use Kulikov's term "Proto-Indo-Aryan" in regard to the grammaticalized passive voice in -ya-.
In any case, it is important that such a grammaticalization is an inner Indo-Aryan (or Indo-Iranian) innovation. E.g., in the Balto-Slavic group (the closest linguistic relative of Indo-Iranian) j-praesentia normally seem to be associated with transitive or
Alexei KASSIAN. Some considerations on Vedic -ya-presents
dle verbs of the shape *V-yd-te changed into V'-ya-te under the influence of the verbs of the 1st class (a repetition of Saussure's rule, which explains the shift 6th class > 1st class for roots with the synchronic vowel -a-). It is not clear, however, why this accent retraction affected non-a-roots (like budh-ya-te '(a)wakes') and why a-forms with the passive semantics (like han-yd-te 'is killed') retained their suffixal accent.
Strictly speaking, Kuryiowicz's theory implies a rather complicated scenario, whose additional iterations have been omitted by Kulikov in his schema:
1) at the first stage all a-forms acquire root accent, regardless of their passive or non-passive meaning; i.e. *han-yd-te > *hdn-ya-te, but non-a-forms like *budh-yd-te remain untouched.
2) the passive voice then starts to grammaticalize, during which process, for some (e.g., statistical) reasons, the *V-yd-te pattern is chosen for the passive meaning. That is, the system of ya-verbs becomes rebuilt again: *hdn-ya-te > han-yd-te 'is killed' and *budh-yd-te > budh-ya-te '(a)wakes'.
On the other hand, if one feels obliged to reduce, by any means, the Proto-Indo-Aryan ya-verbs to a single accentual pattern, an alternative solution — with *V'-ya-as a starting point — could be more likely.
1) Passive ya-stems are a productive and semanti-cally transparent group of verbal forms with an innovative semantics (the passive voice is not reconstructed for IE), therefore, it is natural that the new marked pattern (namely, V-yd-te) was introduced specifically for these forms rather than for the heterogenous and semantically various group of non-passive ya-verbs.
2) As is shown by Kulikov himself (§4), the shift from the V'-ya- pattern to the V-yd-te one for nonpassive forms is attested in available Vedic data (if one assumes that the RV dialect is more archaic than the AV one). In the light of this, *V'-ya-te as a starting point is a more economic scenario than *V-yd-te.
3) Another Indo-Aryan branch, represented by the modern Shina language, normally demonstrates root accent in *ya-forms — see the reply by V. A. Dybo below.
In actual fact, however, attempts to reduce the Proto-Indo-Aryan -ya-verbs to a single accentual pat-
agentive intransitive verbs. Thus, as per Аркадьев 2006, in Modern Lithuanian ca. 65% of verbs with the present and past tenses in -i- are transitive and ca. 30% — agentive intransitive; in their turn, ca. 80% of transitive verbs and ca. 90% of agentive intransitive verbs form the present and past tenses with -i-.
tern seem unsupported by any positive evidence. It is well known that, in regard to their accent, the verbal systems of Ancient Greek and Old Indian are almost totally levelled. This means that normally the place of accent of any verbal form is predictable from its grammatical features. On the contrary, Balto-Slavic languages demonstrate the opposition of two accentual paradigms ("immobile" and "mobile") in almost all verbal types.2 In such a case the standard comparative approach is to consider the Balto-Slavic situation to be more archaic and Ancient Greek and Old Indian systems to be the results of various secondary processes. It is therefore possible that the Vedic ya-pres-ence is a unique case where relics of an old accentual opposition within the OInd. verbal system can be traced.
Unfortunately, less than half of the OInd. ya-verbs with the accentual fluctuation listed in §4 possess reliable Balto-Slavic cognates, and only in a couple of cases the Balto-Slavic data are sufficient for accent reconstruction. Out of them one root possesses the dominant valency:
1) OInd. tdpydte 'heats; suffers' ~ Slav. *topiti 'to warm (trans.)', a.p. b2 (OCA: 113 and V. A. Dubo, pers. com.)3.
On the contrary, one root is clearly recessive:
2) OInd. dirydte 'cracks, is split' ~ Slav. *dw-ati, *dw-g 'to tear', a.p. c (4h6o 1982: 215; OCA: 62).
The following cases are unclear:
3) OInd. ddhydte 'burns' ~ Balt. *deg-a- 'to burn (trans., intr.)', Slav. *zeg-Q, *zez-et' (also *zbg-ati, *zbg-Q) 'to burn (trans.)'. The Baltic morphological type does not permit to establish the original valency of the root. In Slavic languages thematic verbs with the obstruent final also underwent a heavy accentual unification, but S. L. Nikolaev supposes that some new data may speak in favor of the original accentual paradigm c (OCA 1: 50).
2 Particularly it concerns the Slavic г'-praesentia, for which three accentual paradigms (a, b and c) are reconstructable in the case of roots with the non-obstruent final (ОСА: 62—63); but the mobile accentual paradigm was indeed eliminated in verbs with the obstruent final, where only a.p. a and b are reconstructable (ОСА: 64). On the contrary, V. A. Dybo (see his reply below) supposes that Slavic present stems of the a.p. c such as *zu-i-Q 'to chew', *ku-i-Q 'to hammer' etc. (ОСА: 63) are secondary formations based on the more archaic forms *zov-Q, *kov-Q etc. If it is really so (I am not sure, however), the Slavic present suffix -io-/-ie- can be assuredly reconstructed as a dominant morpheme.
3 A.p. c in Old Russian (Зализняк 1985: 140), where the old a.p. b2 & c fell together.
In my opinion, however, the Slavic data is also unrepresentative in such a case.
4) OInd. puryate 'becomes full' ~ Balt. *pilna- 'full' (Lith. pilnas [secondary 3], Lett. pilns), Slav. *p'ln', accentual paradigm a 'full'. The Balto-Slavic stem *p'l-n- is indeed dominant, but accentual characteristics of the suffix -n- can hardly be established, and, therefore, the valency of the root remains unknown.
5) OInd. mucyate 'becomes free' ~ Balt. *mauk-ia-(trans.), *smauk-ia- (trans.), *mu-n-k-a- (intr.) '(verb
of motion)', Slav. *m'knQti, *m'cati, *mykati '(verb of motion)'. Both Baltic and Slavic morphological types do not permit to establish the original valency of the root.
6) OInd. ricyate 'is emptied' ~ Balt. *liek- ~ *liek-a- 'to leave'. The Baltic morphological type does not permit to establish the original valency of the root.
Thus, the available material is too scant for far-reaching conclusions.
В. А. Дыбо
Российский государственный гуманитарный университет (Москва)
Относительно др.-инд. -ya-глаголов
Установление Л. И. Куликовым акцентуационных дублетов в формах презенса с основой на -уа- — важный результат исследования. Но полный ли это список? Необходимо получить полные списки подобных словоформ с явно пассивным значением. Следует иметь в виду, что все исторические и сравнительно-исторические грамматики страдают из-за отсутствия полных списков засвидетельствованных в памятниках словоформ. Мне представляется, что разделение -уа-словоформ на IV класс и пассив по акцентовке словоформ — явление искусственное, обязанное позднейшей грамматической спекуляции, а само наличие двух типов ак-центовки -уа-словоформ имеет фонетическое (просодическое) объяснение. Конечно, два типа ак-центовки этих словоформ, возникнув фонетически, в дальнейшем могли быть использованы для различения пассивных и медиальных значений. Это мое представление поддерживается следующими фактами:
Уже Б. Уилер обнаружил, что лишь две трети соответствующих между собой имен в греко-арийском совпадают по своей акцентовке (Wheeler 1885). Он, правда, не придал этому существенного значения. Впервые на важность этого расхождения между языками, положенными в основу индоевропейской акцентологической реконструкции, было указано в совместном докладе Николаев & Старостин 1978. Были приведены следующие отклонения
в акцентовке древнеиндийских и греческих тематических имен1:
1. др.-инд. sankhä- m., n. 'Muschel' ~ греч. коуко; m., коукг| f. 'моллюск в раковине; раковина' I KEWA III, 290—291; Frisk I, 889—890;
2. др.-инд. syenäh m. 'Raubvogel, Adler, Falke, Habicht' ~ греч. Lktlvo; 'вид хищной птицы' I KEWA III, 385; Frisk I, 719;
3. др.-инд. ankäh m. 'Biegung, Haken' ~ греч. оуко; m. 'Widerhaken des Pfeils, Klampe', 'загнутый конец стрелы' I KEWA I, 19; Frisk II, 347;
4. др.-инд. anträm n. 'Eingeweide' ~ греч. evxepov n. 'кишка', pl. evxepa 'внутренности'; герм. *enprö pl. n. [> др.-исл. innr, iör pl. n. 'внутренности']; слав. *§trä > *§tra I KEWA I, 74, 36, 35; Frisk I, 524—525; Barber 1932: 46; ср. Иллич-Свитыч 1963: 122;
5. др.-инд. kumbhäh m. 'Topf, Krug' ~ греч. кир.|Зо; m. 'Hohlgefäß, Schale', кир.|3г| f. 'чаша' I KEWA I, 234; Frisk II, 48;
6. др.-инд. cakräh m., cakräm n. 'Wagenrad' ~ греч. кикАо; m. 'круг, колесо', pl. также кикАа;
1 См. также эти списки в переработанном С. Л. Николаевым виде в ОСА 1: 70 ссл. Здесь приводится дополнительный по сравнению с названными источниками этимологический разбор.
