Proto-Indo-European verbs
The verbal system of the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) was a complex system, with verbs categorized according to their aspect â stative, imperfective, or perfective. The system utilized multiple grammatical moods and voices, with verbs being conjugated according to person, number and tense. The system of adding affixes 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)âfor 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 á¸Ģi-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.
Overview
All of the older Indo-European languages show a complex system of verb conjugation, with verbs conjugated across multiple categories. In general, the following categories can be reconstructed for Proto-Indo-European (excluding Hittite and other Anatolian languages) in the traditional Cowgill-Rix system, although some categories (e.g. the dual) tended to drop out in time, while some languages innovated new categories (e.g. the future tense):
- Person: 1st, 2nd, 3rd
- Number: singular, dual, plural
- Voice: active, mediopassive (or "middle")
- Mood: indicative, subjunctive, optative, imperative, possibly also injunctive (used for "gnomic" statements expressing general truths or unchanging facts)
- Tense/Aspect: present, imperfect, aorist, perfect
The original interpretation of the tense/aspect categories has been a thorny issue; see below. The traditional names follow the usages of these forms in Ancient Greek, where the imperfect generally indicates an ongoing or repeated past action, the aorist a single past action viewed in its entirety, and the perfect as a past action with present relevance. They are sometimes compared, respectively, with the English forms "I was doing, I did, I have done", or (even more accurately) the Spanish forms "(yo) hacÃa, hice, he hecho". However, the meaning of these forms is somewhat different in Sanskrit, and even in Ancient Greek the canonical meanings only apply in finite verbs in the indicative mood; the categories of present, aorist and perfect also exist in other moods and in participles and infinitives but in these cases have only aspectual values.
Verbs could be formed according to multiple conjugations, each with its own way of constructing a given category. In the most conservative languages (e.g. Ancient Greek, Sanskrit, Tocharian, Old Irish), there is a separate set of conjugational classes for each of the tense/aspect categories, with no general relationship obtaining between the class of a given verb in one category relative to another. The result is that verbs must be described by a set of principal parts, each listing the method of forming a given category in that verb. There was a gradual tendency to regularize this system into a single set of global conjugations, which was partly complete in Latin (although not in Class III, the -ere verbs), and mostly complete in Germanic. Conversely, the oldest stages of the most conservative languages (esp. Vedic Sanskrit) reveal clear remains of an even less organized system, where a given verb root might have multiple ways, or no way at all, of being conjugated in a given tense/aspect category â sometimes with meanings that differ in unpredictable ways. This clearly suggests that the tense/aspect categories originated as separate lexical verbs, part of a system of derivational morphology (compare the related verbs "to rise" and "to raise", or the abstract nouns "produce", "product", "production" derived from the verb "to produce"), and only gradually became integrated into a coherent system of inflectional morphology, which was still incomplete at the time of the proto-language.
There were also a number of secondary formations, e.g. causative ("I had someone do something"), iterative/inceptive ("I did something repeatedly"/"I began to do something"), desiderative ("I want to do something"), which are distinguished from the "primary" formations by the fact that they generally are part of the derivational rather than inflectional morphology system in the daughter languages â although, as mentioned above, there was no clear boundary between the derivational and inflectional system of verbs in PIE. Not surprisingly, some of these formations have become part of the inflectional system in particular daughter languages. Probably the most common example is the future tense, which exists in many daughter languages but in forms that are not cognate, and tend to reflect either the PIE subjunctive or a PIE desiderative formation.
The methods of forming a given verb class in a given category are also complex and variable. In general, a given verb form can be described as a combination of three parts: ROOT/ABLAUT â SUFFIX â ENDING. The first two parts together (ROOT/ABLAUT â SUFFIX) are known as the stem. The ending generally indicates person, number and voice, while the stem generally indicates the verb class and category (i.e. mood and tense/aspect). A given class/category combination usually forms its stem using a combination of three types of root modifications:
- Adding a suffix.
- Changing the ablaut of the root. The ablaut is the type of vowel used in the verb root: generally, either e, o, Ä, or no vowel (the "zero grade"). For some class/category combinations (particularly the "athematic" types; see below), there is also ablaut variation within a given paradigm. The most common case is for a "stronger" variant to be used in the active singular, while a "weaker" variant is used elsewhere in the paradigm. Examples of such ablaut variations are e or o vs. no vowel, and Ä vs. e (so-called Narten classes).
- Changing the position of the stress, usually either on the root or suffix. Zero-grade ablaut roots are generally unstressed (i.e. the stress is on the suffix), while the other grades are generally stressed; but, naturally, with some exceptions.
In addition, some verb classes use additional types of root modification:
- The n-infix type of present class inserts an n within the root, before the last consonant.
- A number of different classes have reduplication, i.e. an additional syllable is prefixed onto the root, consisting of a copy of the first root consonant followed by a vowel e or i.
Note that this means that a given verbal category might form its stem in one of many quite different ways, sometimes with different endings. In addition, sometimes the identical stem formation is used across different class/category combinations. For example, the PIE aorist is usually formed in one of the following ways:
- The root aorist, which adds athematic endings directly onto the root, with e/zero ablaut within the paradigm: e.g. *leikʡ-t "he left" from root *leikʡ.
- The sigmatic aorist, which uses a suffix -s along with athematic endings and Ä/e ablaut within the paradigm: e.g. *dÄiḹ-s-t "he pointed out" from root *deiḹ.
- The reduplicated aorist, which uses reduplication along with athematic endings and e/zero ablaut within the paradigm.
- The thematic aorist, which adds thematic endings onto the root, with no ablaut within the paradigm: e.g. *hâludh-et "he went" from root *hâleudh, with zero-grade ablaut.
All four methods of forming the stem are also found in the present, although sometimes with different ablaut. Although the present and aorist use different endings, the imperfect is formed using the present stem and the same endings as in the aorist; as a result, present and aorist stems are generally formed in different ways, to avoid ambiguity.
As just indicated, there are multiple sets of endings, depending on both the class and category, and in some cases distinct endings may be the only thing distinguishing one category from another. Endings are characterized as primary vs. secondary, and as thematic vs. athematic. Primary endings are generally used in the present indicative and throughout the subjunctive, while secondary endings are used elsewhere. In many cases, the primary endings are distinguished relative to the secondary endings by an additional suffix (originally -i in the active and -r in the mediopassive, although the majority of subfamilies generalized -i to the mediopassive as well). Athematic endings are added directly onto the stem, while thematic endings are usually the same as the athematic endings but with an additional "theme vowel" (either e or o) added between stem and ending. There are also some unpredictable variations among different sets of endings, e.g. first singular active athematic *-mi but thematic *-ohâ. Finally, there is an additional set of endings specific to the perfect, and another set specific to the imperative.
Verbal categories
Proto-Indo-European verb lexemes 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 *-ehâ-, 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, 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 -Êye/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 áŧĩĪĪΡÎŧΚ, Sankskrit tÃášŖášhati), 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 participles, one for each combination of tense and mood, and an assorted array of verbal nouns and adjectival formations.
Aspects
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 reduplication.
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 *woidhâe, originally "I am in a state resulting from having seen/found"; cf. Latin vidÄre "to see", Sanskrit vinÃĄtti "he finds", with exact cognates in Sanskrit veda and Greek Îŋáŧ´Î´Îą, 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, 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).[citation needed]
Conjugations
PIE, like many languages, had a set of conjugational 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 peithÅ).
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 formations. A primary formation is a word that is formed by adding a suffix directly onto a root (as described above), while a secondary formation is a word formed from an existing word (whether primary or secondary). As an approximate parallel in English, the word contain can be considered a primary formation, created by adding the prefix con- to the root -tain. In turn, the suffix -er can be added onto the word contain to form the secondary formation container. This process can be repeated to form containerize and then containerization. As in the English example, the fundamental difference in PIE between primary and secondary formations is that only the latter are formed from existing words. As in the English root -tain, the PIE roots from which a primary formation is derived are not themselves words, and in fact often exist in multiple variations (cf. -tain vs. -ten-, as in retain vs. retention, or -ceive vs. -cep(t) vs. -cip-, as in receive vs. reception vs. recipient).
Note that this usage of these terms has no relation with the system of primary and secondary endings, and only a partial connection with the distinction between primary and secondary verb categories found in the daughter languages.
Generally, a given suffix can be classified as either primary or secondary, although some suffixes can form both types of words, and in some situations it is not always clear whether a particular word was originally primary or secondary.
In the case of verbs, 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 practice, the term denominative verb is often used to incorporate formations based on both nouns and adjectives because PIE nouns and adjectives had the same suffixes and endings, and the same processes were used to form verbs from both nouns and adjectives.) Particular processes of forming secondary verbs had particular meanings such as causative, intensive, and desiderative. The formation of secondary verbs was part of the derivational system rather than the inflectional system, as they existed only for certain verbs and did not necessarily have completely predictable meanings (compare the remnants of causative constructions in English â 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.
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 parts, 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 -Äre, -Äre, -ÄĢre (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 verbs, with most of the original primary verbs becoming strong verbs. 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.
Present classes
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 -sḹ- verbs, thematic
- Type 9a: Simple -sḹ- verbs
- Type 9b: Reduplicated -sḹ- 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 -ehâ-(y)- to adjectives. Originally (in Hittite) athematic without the -y-, later thematized with -y- suffix.
- Type 6c: Denominative in -ehâ-y- to nouns and adjectives. Apparently began as type-6a denominatives to -ehâ 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 -eyÊ- (early Vedic) or -Êye- (later, elsewhere?).
- Type 7: Causative/iterative in -Êy-, with o-grade root.
- Type 8: Stative in -ehâ-(y)-. As for -ehâ- factitives, originally (in Hittite) athematic without the -y-, later thematized with -y- suffix.
- Type 9: Inchoative etc. in -sḹ-, thematic
- Type 9a, 9b: Primary -sḹ- verbs, without/with reduplication (see above)
- Type 9c: Stative inchoative in -ehâ-sḹ-
- Type 9d: Other formations in -sḹ-
- Type 10: Desiderative in -(hâ)s-, mostly thematic; -hâ- usually disappears after stops
- Type 10a: Simple desiderative in -(hâ)s-
- Type 10b: Reduplicated desiderative in -(hâ)s-
- Type 10c: Simple desiderative in -(hâ)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" (*immi), "to do/put" (*dÅmi) | Class V (4 -mÄ verbs) | -mi verbs in OLith. | 3 verbs | class I | common | ||
2: -ohâ | 2a: class I; 2b: class VI | many -Å verbs | many -ere verbs | most strong verbs | class I | class B I | class II; class III, IV (deponent) | no | |||
3a: Ci-CÊC-mi | class III | a few prominent -mi verbs | |||||||||
3b: Ci-CC-ohâ | relics | relics | a few verbs | ||||||||
4a: CRĖĨ-nÊC-mi | class VII | CV-n-C-ÃĄnÅ verbs | CV-n-CÅ verbs | relics | relics | n-infix verbs | class B III | -an- verbs | class VII | causative -nin- verbs? | |
4b: CRĖĨ-nÊH-mi | class IX | -nÄmi verbs | a few -n verbs | 4th weak (fientive) | class II (semelfactive -nĮĢ- verbs) | class B IV | class VI | no? | |||
4c: CRĖĨ-nÊu-mi | class V, VIII | -nÅĢmi verbs | relics | relics | class B V | causative -nu- verbs | |||||
5: primary -yohâ | 5a: class IV; 5b: passive verbs | many *-CyÅ verbs | 3rd conj. i-stem; part of 4th conj. | strong verbs with -j- present | a few -ÄĢ/ÄĢ verbs | many verbs? | class B II | 5b: passive -i- verbs | Class iv subjunctive | ||
6a: denom. -Cyohâ | -yÃĄti verbs | many *-CyÅ verbs (e.g. -ainÅ, -izdÅ, -eiÅ); -iÅ, -uÅ | class XII from n-nouns | ||||||||
6b/c: factitive/denom. -ehâ-yohâ: usually very productive | -Äyati verbs | -aÅ contract verbs | -Äre verbs (1st conj.) | 2nd weak in -Å- | -aj/a- verbs (class III Aa) | weak a-verbs (class A I) | 6b: athem. factitive | ||||
6d: factitive -o-yohâ? | -oÅ contract verbs? | factitive 3rd weak verbs? | "a class of Anatolian denominatives"?[1] | ||||||||
6e: denom. -e-yohâ: usually very productive | class X; denom. -a-yÃĄti verbs | many -eÅ contract verbs | many -ÄĢre, a few -Äre verbs | denom. 1st weak | denom. -ÄĢ/ÄĢ verbs | denom. weak i-verbs (class A II) | |||||
7: caus./iter. CoC-Ê-yohâ | caus. verbs (very productive) | CoC-eÅ verbs: some iter., a few caus. | -Äre caus. verbs | caus. 1st weak (common) | caus./iter. -ÄĢ/ÄĢ verbs | caus. weak i- verbs (class A II) | |||||
8: stative -ehâ- | -(th)Ä- aorist passive | most 2nd conj. verbs | most 3rd weak verbs | -Äj/Ä- verbs; impf. -Ä- > -a- suffix | |||||||
9a,b: primary -sḹ- | 9a: 13 -cchati verbs | 9a: relics; 9b: several verbs | 9a: several verbs; 9b: only discÅ "learn" | ||||||||
9c: -ehâ-sḹ- | stative inchoative in -Äscere (productive) | a few -oh verbs | |||||||||
9d: other -sḹ- | Homeric habitual past -esk- verbs | inchoative in -(ÄĢ)scere (productive) | c`-aorist, -ic`-subjunctive | class IX in B; causative in -ášŖášŖ- (very productive) | habitual, durative in -ÅĄk- (very productive) | ||||||
10a,b: desiderative -(hâ)s- | esp. 10b: desid. verbs (productive) | 10a: future tense | relics | no? | 10b: future tense | ||||||
10c: desid. -(hâ)sy- | future tense | no? | no? | relic: byÅĄÄÅĄtÄ | 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? | Class I preterite | 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 | Class III preterite | ||
3: thematic | class II (more common in later Vedic) | second aorist | "aorist-present" verbs (relics) > thematic presents | "root aorist" to class I, II | some aorists | Class VI preterite | |||||
4: redup. | class III (to causatives) | aorist to causatives | class II preterite in Toch. A (usually causative) | ||||||||
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) | vÄdÄti "to know" | no? | redup. preterite | no | some Class III preterite; perfect ptc. | á¸Ģi-presents | |
lengthened perfect/aorist in -Ä- | ? | ? | long-vowel perfect | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | Class II preterite in Toch. B | ? |
imperfect | imperfect tense (in Vedic, with aorist meaning) | imperfect tense | no? | only dÅnÄ "do" | no? | no? | no? | aorist, imperfect | singular imperfect | no? | preterite tense? |
subjunctive | subjunctive (future meaning) | subjunctive | future of 3rd, 4th conj. | no | no? | a-subj.?; s-subjunctive < aorist subj. | no? | ||||
optative | optative | optative | im-subj. to athematic verbs | subjunctive; also wiljanÄ "want" | imperative | imperative ("permissive"?) | no | optative; plural imperfect | optative; imperfect | 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 | yes | meaning like a t-participle | |
-mhân- 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, some adjectives | 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 | no (*haitanÄ "to call" in post-Northwest Germanic) | yes | ||||||
dual verbs | yes | 2nd/3rd person only | no | 1st/2nd person only | yes | yes | no (nouns only) | yes | |||
Proposed endings
At least the following sets of endings existed:
- Primary athematic
- Primary thematic
- Secondary athematic
- Secondary thematic
- Perfect
- Imperative
The primary vs. secondary endings are used in different categories, with primary (or "non-past") endings appearing in the present indicative and throughout the subjunctive, while the secondary (or "past") endings appear in the imperfect indicative, the aorist indicative, and in some or all optative categories. The perfect indicative had its own endings; likewise, the imperative. Note that, from a diachronic standpoint, the secondary endings are actually the more basic ones, while the primary endings were formed from them by adding a suffix, originally -i in the active and -r in the mediopassive (although the more central subfamilies have innovated by extending -i to the mediopassive as well).
The athematic (mi) endings are added directly to the stem, while the thematic (Å) endings use a "thematic vowel" o or e before the endings. Whether thematic or athematic endings are used is a property of a given verb conjugational class. The athematic endings appear to be older, and ablaut within a given paradigm (usually between active singular and all other forms) generally occurs only in athematic classes. The clear tendency in the daughter languages is to extend the thematic endings at the expense of the athematic ones, likely because of the complications resulting from the consonant clusters formed when the mostly consonant-initial endings are added directly onto the mostly consonant-final stems. 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 Sihler (1995) and Fortson (2004) 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. Greek and Balto-Slavic have t-less forms in thematic actives, whereas Vedic and Hittite have t-less athematic middle forms. Beekes (1995), 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.[citation needed]
Buck (1933) | Sihler (1995) | Fortson (2004) | Beekes (1995) | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Athematic | Thematic | Athematic | Thematic | Athematic | Thematic | Athematic | Thematic | ||
Singular | 1st | *-mi | *-Å | *-mi | *-ohâ | *-mi | *-ohâ | *-mi | *-oH |
2nd | *-si | *-esi | *-si | *-esi | *-si | *-esi | *-si | *-ehâi | |
3rd | *-ti | *-eti | *-ti | *-eti/-ei | *-ti | *-eti | *-ti | *-e | |
Dual | 1st | -? | -? | *-wos | *-owos | *-we- | *-owe- | *-ues | *-oues |
2nd | -? | -? | *-thâes | *-ethâes | *-to- | *-eto- | *-tHes/-tHos | *-etHes/-etHos | |
3rd | -? | -? | *-tes | *-etes | *-to- | *-eto- | *-tes | *-etes | |
Plural | 1st | *-mos/-mes | *-omos/-omes | *-mos | *-omos | *-me- | *-ome- | *-mes | *-omom |
2nd | *-te | *-ete | *-te | *-ete | *-te(-) | *-ete(-) | *-thâe | *-ethâe | |
3rd | *-nti | *-onti | *-nti | *-onti | *-nti | *-onti | *-nti | *-o |
A third conjugation has been proposed in Jay Jasanoff's hâe-conjugation theory.
Examples
*leykʡ-
The following is an example paradigm, based on Ringe (2006), of the verb *leykʡ-, "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) â the central dialects (Indo-Iranian, Greek, Germanic, Balto-Slavic, Albanian, and Armenian) use forms ending in *y, while the peripheral dialects (Italic, Celtic, Hittite, and Tocharian) use forms ending in *r, which are generally considered the original forms.
Ringe makes certain assumptions about synchronic PIE phonology that are not universally accepted:
- Sievers' Law applies in all positions and to all resonants, including *i, *u, *r, *l, *n, *m.
- There are no vocalic allophones of laryngeals.
- Word-final *t becomes *d when adjacent to a voiced segment (i.e. vowel or voiced consonant).
The effects of the generally-accepted synchronic boukÃŗlos rule whereby *kʡ becomes *k next to *u or *w are shown.
Present stem, active | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1ary indic. | 2ary indic. | subjunctive | optative | imperative | |
1 sg. | *linÊkʡmi | *linÊkʡmĖĨ | *linÊkʡohâ | *linkʡiÊhâm | â |
2 sg. | *linÊkʡsi | *linÊkʡs | *linÊkʡesi | *linkʡiÊhâs | *linÊkʡ, *linkʡdĘ°Ã |
3 sg. | *linÊkʡti | *linÊkʡt | *linÊkʡeti | *linkʡiÊhât | *linÊkʡtu |
1 du. | *linkuÃŗs | *linkuÊ | *linÊkʡowos | *linkʡihâwÊ | â |
2 du. | *linkʡtÊs | *linkʡtÃŗm | *linÊkʡetes | *linkʡihâtÃŗm | *linkʡtÃŗm |
3 du. | *linkʡtÊs | *linkʡtÄĖm | *linÊkʡetes | *linkʡihâtÄĖm | *linkʡtÄĖm |
1 pl. | *linkʡmĖĨÃŗs | *linkʡmĖĨÊ | *linÊkʡomos | *linkʡihâmÊ | â |
2 pl. | *linkʡtÊ | *linkʡtÊ | *linÊkʡete | *linkʡihâtÊ | *linkʡtÊ |
3 pl. | *linkĘˇÃŠnti | *linkĘˇÃŠnd | *linÊkʡonti | *linkʡihâÊnd | *linkĘˇÃŠntu |
participle | *linkʡÃŗnts, *linkʡnĖĨtÊs; *linkʡÃŗntihâ, *linkʡnĖĨtyÊhâs |
Present stem, mediopassive | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1ary indic. (central) | 1ary indic. (peripheral) | 2ary indic. | subjunctive (central) | subjunctive (peripheral) | optative | imperative | |
1 sg. | *linkʡhâÊy | *linkʡhâÊr | *linkʡhâÊ | *linÊkʡohâey | *linÊkʡohâer | *linkʡihâhâÊ | â |
2 sg. | *linkʡthâÊy | *linkʡthâÊr | *linkʡthâÊ | *linÊkʡethâey | *linÊkʡethâer | *linkʡihâthâÊ | ? |
3 sg. | *linkʡtÃŗy | *linkʡtÃŗr | *linkʡtÃŗ | *linÊkʡetoy | *linÊkʡetor | *linkʡihâtÃŗ | ? |
1 du. | *linkuÃŗsdĘ°hâ | *linkuÃŗsdĘ°hâ | *linkuÊdĘ°hâ | *linÊkʡowosdĘ°hâ | *linÊkʡowosdĘ°hâ | *linkʡihâwÊdĘ°hâ | â |
2 du. | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
3 du. | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
1 pl. | *linkʡmĖĨÃŗsdĘ°hâ | *linkʡmĖĨÃŗsdĘ°hâ | *linkʡmĖĨÊdĘ°hâ | *linÊkʡomosdĘ°hâ | *linÊkʡomosdĘ°hâ | *linkʡihâmÊdĘ°hâ | â |
2 pl. | *linkʡdĘ°hâuÊ | *linkʡdĘ°hâuÊ | *linkʡdĘ°hâuÊ | *linÊkʡedĘ°hâue | *linÊkʡedĘ°hâue | *linkʡihâdĘ°hâuÊ | *linkʡdĘ°hâuÊ |
3 pl. | *linkʡnĖĨtÃŗy | *linkʡnĖĨtÃŗr | *linkʡnĖĨtÃŗ | *linÊkʡontoy | *linÊkʡontor | *linkʡihârÃŗ | ? |
participle | *linkʡmĖĨhânÃŗs |
Aorist stem, active | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
2ary indic. | subjunctive | optative | imperative | |
1 sg. | *lÊykʡmĖĨ | *lÊykʡohâ | *likʡyÊhâm | â |
2 sg. | *lÊykʡs | *lÊykʡesi | *likʡyÊhâs | *lÊykʡ, *likʡdĘ°Ã |
3 sg. | *lÊykʡt | *lÊykʡeti | *likʡyÊhât | *lÊykʡtu |
1 du. | *likwÊ | *lÊykʡowos | *likʡihâwÊ | â |
2 du. | *likʡtÃŗm | *lÊykʡetes | *likʡihâtÃŗm | *likʡtÃŗm |
3 du. | *likʡtÄĖm | *lÊykʡetes | *likʡihâtÄĖm | *likʡtÄĖm |
1 pl. | *likʡmÊ | *lÊykʡomos | *likʡihâmÊ | â |
2 pl. | *likʡtÊ | *lÊykʡete | *likʡihâtÊ | *likʡtÊ |
3 pl. | *likĘˇÃŠnd | *lÊykʡonti | *likʡihâÊnd | *likĘˇÃŠntu |
participle | *likʡÃŗnts, *likʡnĖĨtÊs; *likʡÃŗntihâ, *likʡnĖĨtyÊhâs |
Aorist stem, mediopassive | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2ary indic. | subjunctive (central) | subjunctive (peripheral) | optative | imperative | |
1 sg. | *likʡhâÊ | *lÊykʡohâey | *lÊykʡohâer | *likʡihâhâÊ | â |
2 sg. | *likʡthâÊ | *lÊykʡethâey | *lÊykʡethâer | *likʡihâthâÊ | ? |
3 sg. | *likʡtÃŗ | *lÊykʡetoy | *lÊykʡetor | *likʡihâtÃŗ | ? |
1 du. | *likwÊdĘ°hâ | *lÊykʡowosdĘ°hâ | *lÊykʡowosdĘ°hâ | *likʡihâwÊdĘ°hâ | â |
2 du. | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
3 du. | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
1 pl. | *likʡmÊdĘ°hâ | *lÊykʡomosdĘ°hâ | *lÊykʡomosdĘ°hâ | *likʡihâmÊdĘ°hâ | â |
2 pl. | *likʡdĘ°hâuÊ | *lÊykʡedĘ°hâue | *lÊykʡedĘ°hâue | *likʡihâdĘ°hâuÊ | *likʡdĘ°hâuÊ |
3 pl. | *likʡnĖĨtÃŗ | *lÊykʡontoy | *lÊykʡontor | *likʡihârÃŗ | ? |
participle | *likʡmĖĨhânÃŗs |
Perfect stem, active | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
indicative | subjunctive | optative | imperative | ||||
1 sg. | *lelÃŗykʡhâe | *lelÊykʡohâ | *lelikʡyÊhâm | â | |||
2 sg. | *lelÃŗykʡthâe | *lelÊykʡesi | *lelikʡyÊhâs | ?, *lelikʡdĘ°Ã | |||
3 sg. | *lelÃŗykʡe | *lelÊykʡeti | *lelikʡyÊhât | ? | |||
1 du. | *lelikwÊ | *lelÊykʡowos | *lelikʡihâwÊ | â | |||
2 du. | ? | *lelÊykʡetes | *lelikʡihâtÃŗm | ? | |||
3 du. | ? | *lelÊykʡetes | *lelikʡihâtÄĖm | ? | |||
1 pl. | *lelikʡmÊ | *lelÊykʡomos | *lelikʡihâmÊ | â | |||
2 pl. | *lelikĘˇÃŠ | *lelÊykʡete | *lelikʡihâtÊ | ? | |||
3 pl. | *lelikʡá¸r | *lelÊykʡonti | *lelikʡihâÊnd | ? | |||
participle | *lelikʡášs, *lelikusÊs; *lelikʡÃŗsihâ, *lelikusyÊhâs |
*bĘ°er-
The following is an example paradigm, based on Ringe (2006), of the verb *bĘ°er- "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 *hâ in the thematic optative.
Present stem, active | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1ary indic. | 2ary indic. | subjunctive | optative | imperative | |||
1 sg. | *bĘ°ÃŠrohâ | *bĘ°ÃŠrom | *bĘ°ÃŠrÅhâ | *bĘ°ÃŠroyhâmĖĨ | â | ||
2 sg. | *bĘ°ÃŠresi | *bĘ°ÃŠres | *bĘ°ÃŠrÄsi | *bĘ°ÃŠroys | *bĘ°ÃŠre | ||
3 sg. | *bĘ°ÃŠreti | *bĘ°ÃŠred | *bĘ°ÃŠrÄti | *bĘ°ÃŠroyt | *bĘ°ÃŠretu | ||
1 du. | *bĘ°ÃŠrowos | *bĘ°ÃŠrowe | *bĘ°ÃŠrÅwos | *bĘ°ÃŠroywe | â | ||
2 du. | *bĘ°ÃŠretes | *bĘ°ÃŠretom | *bĘ°ÃŠrÄtes | *bĘ°ÃŠroytom | *bĘ°ÃŠretom | ||
3 du. | *bĘ°ÃŠretes | *bĘ°ÃŠretÄm | *bĘ°ÃŠrÄtes | *bĘ°ÃŠroytÄm | *bĘ°ÃŠretÄm | ||
1 pl. | *bĘ°ÃŠromos | *bĘ°ÃŠrome | *bĘ°ÃŠrÅmos | *bĘ°ÃŠroyme | â | ||
2 pl. | *bĘ°ÃŠrete | *bĘ°ÃŠrete | *bĘ°ÃŠrÄte | *bĘ°ÃŠroyte | *bĘ°ÃŠrete | ||
3 pl. | *bĘ°ÃŠronti | *bĘ°ÃŠrond | *bĘ°ÃŠrÅnti | *bĘ°ÃŠroyhâend | *bĘ°ÃŠrontu | ||
participle | *bĘ°ÃŠronts, *bĘ°ÃŠrontos; *bĘ°ÃŠrontihâ, *bĘ°ÃŠrontiehâs |
Present stem, mediopassive | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1ary indic. (central) | 1ary indic. (peripheral) | 2ary indic. | subjunctive (central) | subjunctive (peripheral) | optative | imperative | |
1 sg. | *bĘ°ÃŠrohâey | *bĘ°ÃŠrohâer | *bĘ°ÃŠrohâe | *bĘ°ÃŠrÅhâey | *bĘ°ÃŠrÅhâer | *bĘ°ÃŠroyhâe | â |
2 sg. | *bĘ°ÃŠrethâey | *bĘ°ÃŠrethâer | *bĘ°ÃŠrethâe | *bĘ°ÃŠrÄthâey | *bĘ°ÃŠrÄthâer | *bĘ°ÃŠroythâe | ? |
3 sg. | *bĘ°ÃŠretoy | *bĘ°ÃŠretor | *bĘ°ÃŠreto | *bĘ°ÃŠrÄtoy | *bĘ°ÃŠrÄtor | *bĘ°ÃŠroyto | ? |
1 du. | *bĘ°ÃŠrowosdĘ°hâ | *bĘ°ÃŠrowosdĘ°hâ | *bĘ°ÃŠrowedĘ°hâ | *bĘ°ÃŠrÅwosdĘ°hâ | *bĘ°ÃŠrÅwosdĘ°hâ | *bĘ°ÃŠroywedĘ°hâ | â |
2 du. | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
3 du. | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
1 pl. | *bĘ°ÃŠromosdĘ°hâ | *bĘ°ÃŠromosdĘ°hâ | *bĘ°ÃŠromedĘ°hâ | *bĘ°ÃŠrÅmosdĘ°hâ | *bĘ°ÃŠrÅmosdĘ°hâ | *bĘ°ÃŠroymedĘ°hâ | â |
2 pl. | *bĘ°ÃŠredĘ°hâue | *bĘ°ÃŠredĘ°hâue | *bĘ°ÃŠredĘ°hâue | *bĘ°ÃŠrÄdĘ°hâue | *bĘ°ÃŠrÄdĘ°hâue | *bĘ°ÃŠroydĘ°hâue | *bĘ°ÃŠredĘ°hâue |
3 pl. | *bĘ°ÃŠrontoy | *bĘ°ÃŠrontor | *bĘ°ÃŠronto | *bĘ°ÃŠrÅntoy | *bĘ°ÃŠrÅntor | *bĘ°ÃŠroyro | ? |
participle | *bĘ°ÃŠromnos (< *-o-mhâno-s) |
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 aspect, 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.
See also
- Indo-European copula
- Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben (Lexicon of the Indo-European Verbs)
Notes
- â Ringe, From Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic, p. 180
References
For a list of words relating to Proto-Indo-European verbs, see the Proto-Indo-European verbs category of words in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
- Beekes, Robert S. P. (1995), Comparative Indo-European Linguistics, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, ISBN 90-272-2150-2
- Buck, Carl Darling (1933), Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin, University of Chicago Press, ISBN 0-226-07931-7
- Fortson, Benjamin W., IV (2004), Indo-European Language and Culture, Blackwell Publishing, ISBN 1-4051-0316-7
- Jasanoff, Jay H. (2003), Hittite and the Indo-European Verb, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-924905-9
- Ringe, Don (2006), From Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-955229-0
- Sihler, Andrew L. (1995), New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508345-8
- Watkins, Calvert (1969), Indo-European Origins of the Celtic Verb, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, ISBN 0-901282-24-3
- Whitney, William Dwight (1889), Sanskrit Grammar, Harvard University Press, ISBN 0-486-43136-3
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