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- Herausgeber: Narr Francke Attempto Verlag
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
The book investigates multiple preverbs (PVs) in some ancient IE languages (Vedic, Homeric Greek, Old Church Slavic, and Old Irish). After an introduction, it opens with the theoretical framework and a typologically-oriented overview of PVs. It then gives quantitative data about multiple PV composites and carries out philological, formal, semantic, and syntactic analyses on them. The comparison among these languages suggests that a process of accumulation lies behind multiple PV composites. Also, PV ordering is explained by different factors: semantic solidarity between PVs and verbs PVs tendency to be specified by event participants, PVs etymologies, influence from other languages. The book also contributes to casting light on the reasons for PVs grammaticalization and lexicalization. These are two distinct reanalyses triggered by the same factor, i.e. the mentioned semantic solidarity, which makes PVs be felt as redundant. They are thus reassigned salient pieces of information as actional markers (grammaticalization) or reinterpreted as part of the verb (lexicalization).
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Chiara Zanchi
Multiple Preverbs in Ancient Indo-European Languages
A comparative study on Vedic, Homeric Greek, Old Church Slavic, and Old Irish
Narr Francke Attempto Verlag Tübingen
© 2019 • Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 • D-72070 Tübingen www.francke.de • [email protected]
Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen.
E-Book-Produktion: pagina GmbH, Tübingen
ePub-ISBN 978-3-8233-0125-7
Inhalt
To the memory of my parents
Acknowledgements
This book is a revised version of my PhD thesis, which was written between 2014 and 2017, when I was a PhD student of the Doctoral School in Linguistic Sciencies at University of Pavia and University of Bergamo. Thus, first and foremost, my deepest thanks go to my PhD supervisor, Silvia Luraghi: what I owe her goes far beyond the scope of this work.
I also sincerely thank my co-advisors. For Elisa Roma, it would be an understatement to define her contribution to the chapter on Old Irish as crucial. My gratitude also goes to Pierluigi Cuzzolin for his insightful comments, especially relating to the chapter on Old Church Slavic. Among my co-advisors, Brian D. Joseph deserves special mention: he warmly welcomed me to Ohio State University during the spring term 2017, where I spent four of the most scientifically inspiring and pleasant months of my academic life.
This work benefited enormously from my one-year visit at Friedrich Schiller Universität Jena, for which my most sincere gratitude goes to Martin J. Kümmel. Among people in Jena, I also wish to thank Sergio Neri, Cassandra Freiberg, and Annemarie Verkerk. Cormac Anderson from the MPI in Jena merits special mention, as he was so kind as to provide me with the first group of Old Irish data, which greatly facilitated my continuing collection. Similarly, Hanne M. Eckhoff deserves special thanks for extracting from the TOROT Treebank the Old Church Slavic verbs of this work in 2015. During my stay in Jena, I had the honor of being invited to a special workshop on preverbs held at University of Mainz in May 2016. I thank Björn Wiemer for inviting me to this workshop, where I met Peter Arkadiev, Andrej Malchukov, and Kirill Kozhanov. This work has benefited from the discussions held with each of them.
Among the several people with whom I had conversations relating to preverbs, some call for an explicit mention. Since my Erasmus in Salzburg dating back to 2013, Thomas Krisch has been showing his interest in my work on multiple preverbs, for which I am most grateful. He was one of the external evaluators of my PhD thesis as well: his insightful comments immensely enhanced the final version of this book. Besides being one of the editors of the present book series, Carlotta Viti was also one of the external evaluators of my PhD thesis: her enthusiasm for my work very much contributed in making this book possible. I take this opportunity to thank the co-editors of the book series, Katrin Schmitz and Joachim Theisen, as well as the members of its scientific committee, Daniel Petit, Georges-Jean Pinault, and Sabine Ziegler. In addition, I wish to warmly thank Alexander Lubotsky: during my PhD defence, he provided me with constructive criticism, which especially contributed to improving the chapters relating to Vedic and to Old Church Slavic. Leonid Kulikov also gave me thoughtful suggestions on the chapter relating to Vedic. Craig Melchert, whom I met in Carrboro (NC) in March 2017, answered my many rapid questions on Indo-European preverbs. Pier Marco Bertinetto also took the time to explain to me how applicatives work in Ayoreo in a very long and extremely interesting Skype call.
This is also the right forum in which to deliver my deepest thanks to all scholars, colleagues, and students who privately shared their own monographs, papers or theses with me: thanks to Luisa Ruvoletto, Cinzia Citraro, Marco Budassi, Costanza Conforti, Luisa Borchio, and Carlo Dalle Ceste.
This book would never have been concluded without the support of my colleagues. I express my gratitude to Guglielmo Inglese, one of the most brilliant and amazingly sarcastic linguists I know and value. I thank Erica Pinelli for our neverending discussions on metaphors and metonymies and for the reciprocal support we wholeheartedly offer each other. Last but not least, I thank Chiara Naccarato: during our PhD school, I was lucky enough to gain her as an excellent colleague, as an ever-present next-door neighbor, and as a faithful companion in Romanian summer schools as well as in Russian international conferences. But, above all, my greatest fortune was to earn her precious friendship.
List of abbreviations
Glosses
ABL
ablative
ABS
absolutive
ACC
accusative
ADV
adverb
ADP
adposition
ALL
allative
ANA
anaphoric
AOR
aorist
APP
applicative
ARG
argument
ART
article
AUG
augment
CL
clitic
CONJ
conjunction
D
definite conjugation
DAT
dative
DEICT
deictic
DEM
demonstrative
DISTR
distributive
DU
dual
E
enclitic
EM
emphatic
EP
exterior preverb
EX
existential
EXCL
exclusive
F
feminine
FUT
future
GEN
genitive
GER
gerund
I
indefinite conjugation
IMP
imperative
IMPF
imperfect
INDF
indefinite
INJ
injunctive
INS
instrumental
INT
interrogative
INTENS
intensive
IP
interior preverb
IPFV
imperfective
LOC
locative
MID
middle
MP
medial preverb
M/P
medio-passive
N
noun
N
neuter
NEG
negation
NOM
nominative
NP
noun phrase
O
object
OPT
optative
P
preverb
PASS
passive
PFV
perfective
PL
plural
POSS
possessive
POT
potential
PP
Prepositional Phrase
PREPP
Prepositional Preverb
PRET
preterit
PREVP
Preverbal Preverb
PROT
prototonic
PST
past
PTC
particle
PTCP
participle
P2
second position
REC
reciprocal
RED
reduplication
REFL
reflexive
REL
relative
S
subject
SBJV
subjunctive
SFX
suffix
SG
singular
SR
semantic role
SUP
supine
V
verb
VOC
vocative
VP
verbal phrase
1
first person
2
second person
3
third person
In glosses, the nominal number is specified only if it is plural or dual (singular is not indicated), gender is not indicated unless it is feminine or neuter. Among verbal categories, indicative mood and active voice are likewise not indicated.
Languages
AG
Ancient Greek
BCS
Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian
Cypr.
Cypriot Greek
CS
Common Slavic
Germ.
German
Hitt.
Hittite
Hom.Gr.
Homeric Greek
IE
Indo-European
It.
Italian
Lat.
Latin
Lith.
Lithuanian
Lyd.
Lydian
MW
Middle Welsh
OCS
Old Church Slavic
OIr.
Old Irish
OLat.
Old Latin
OR
Old Russian
PIE
Proto-Indo-European
Ved.
Vedic
Vulg.Lat.
Vulgar Latin
Authors, works, and manuscripts
AitBr.
Aitareya-Brāhmana
Arist.
Aristotle
Bes.
Gregorii Magni papae Homiliae in Evangelia
(Besědy na evangelije papy Grigorija Velikago)
D.
Demosthenes
Euch.
Euchlogium Sinaiticum
Fest.
Sextus Pompeius Festus
Har.
Haravijaya
Hdt.
Herodotus
Il.
Iliad
Jn
John’s Gospel
KUB
Keilschrifturkunden aus Boghazköi
Lk
Luke’s Gospel
Mar.
Codex Marianus
MBh.
Mahābhārata
Metaph.
Metaphysics
Mk
Mark’s Gospel
Ml.
Milan Glosses
Mt
Matthew’s Gospel
Od.
Odyssey
Plb.
Polybius
R̥V
R̥g-Veda
Sg.
Priscian Glosses
Supr.
Codex Suprasliensis
Wb.
Würzburg Glosses
Usp. Sbor.
Uspenskij sbornik
Xen.
Xenophon
Zogr.
Codex Zographensis
Grammars and dictionaries
ACC
Stokes 1899–1900
CGH
O’Brien 1962
DELG
Chantraine 1968
eDIL
Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language
EWAia
Mayrhofer 1986–2001
GOI
Thurneysen 1946
IEW
Pokorny 1959
KPV
Schumacher 2004
LIPP I
Dunkel 2014a
LIPPII
Dunkel 2014b
LIV2
Rix et al. 2001
LSJ
The Online Liddell-Scott-Jones Greek-English Lexicon
REW
Vasmer 1953–1958
RIVELEX
Krisch 2006
RIVELEXII
Krisch 2012
TOROT
Eckhoff & Berdicevskis 2015
VKGII
Pedersen 1913
Symbols
→
become (synchronic rule)
clitic boundary
+
combination of elements
[…]
constituent boundaries
|
context of a phonological rule
/
context of a sound change
~
correspond to
>
develop into (diachronic change)
-
morpheme boundary
_
position in a rule/sound change
√
root
#
starting-/endpoint of a sequence
*
unattested form
1.Introduction
πάντων γὰρ ὅσα πλείω μέρη ἔχει καὶ μή ἐστιν οἷον σωρὸς τὸ πᾶν ἀλλ᾿ ἔστι τι τὸ ὅλον παρὰ τὰ μόρια, ἔστι τι αἴτιον (Arist. Metaph.8.1045a 9–10)
‘In all things which have a plurality of parts, and which are not a total aggregate but a whole of some sort distinct from the parts, there is some cause’
1.1.Motivations behind the present study
This work investigates multiple preverbs modifying verbs in some ancient Indo-European languages, specifically in Vedic, Homeric Greek, Old Church Slavic, and Old Irish. The construction under research is schematized in (1)a and exemplified in (1)b:
Each simplex base in (1)b is modified by more than one preverb, that is, a small uninflected morpheme with original spatial semantics and free-standing status. The resulting formations can develop predictable or unpredictable semantics, given the concrete basic meanings of the elements that make them up.
Preverbs and preverbation are two well-studied topics in Indo-European linguistics (cf. e.g. Rousseau 1995; Booij & Van Kemenade 2003; Chapter 3, and references therein), to such an extent that the notion of preverb itself emerged from these fields of study. However, far less attention has been paid to multiple preverb constructions of the type in (1)a-b, in which two or more such morphemes attach onto the same simplex verb. This gap in the literature may occur because the accumulation of preverbs, though possible, does not seem to be the favored procedure in ancient Indo-European languages (Kuryłowicz 1964: 174).
In spite of this general observation, a number of scholars noticed the relatively exceptional presence of multiple preverbs in Old Irish. Thurneysen (GOI495) even wrote that “there is no restriction on the number of prepositions [i.e. preverbs] that may be employed in composition.” According to Kuryłowicz (1964: 174ff.), in Old Irish, multiple preverbs are widespread as they do not constitute an ambiguous construction: the preverb farthest from the verbal stem is clearly separated from the rest of the verbal complex, as it retains a proclitic status. McCone (1997) offered an explanation of the ordering preferences of Old Irish preverbs in what he called “primary composition”, namely the inherited layer of composition, whereby more than one preverb simultaneously attached onto the same simplex verb. However, Trudy Rossiter, a student of McCone’s, in her doctoral thesis (Rossiter 2004), challenged this view: she showed that the vast majority of Old Irish verbs with multiple preverbs can be reduced by removing the outermost preverb. This fact points to a process of formation by incremental one-by-one accumulation of preverbs (the so-called “accretion” or “recomposition”), a scenario that McCone (2006) also later embraced (cf. Chapter 7).
McCone’s (1997) monograph offered Papke (2010) a starting point to develop her comparison between Vedic and Old Irish preverb ordering, which she also extended to Homeric Greek. Papke concluded that, as there are strong correlations between preverb orderings, especially in Vedic and Old Irish, Vedic order must be historically motivated (cf. Chapters 4 and 7). In addition, in her view, Vedic verbs with multiple preverbs formed through a process that Rossiter and McCone would call “accretion” or “recomposition”: at first, only one preverb and a verbal base combine; afterwards, this established combination becomes available for the attaching of further preverb(s) (cf. Chapter 3).
Caroline Imbert dedicated several studies to Homeric Greek multiple preverbs, to their historical sources, and to the synchronic constraints ruling preverb ordering (cf. e.g. Imbert 2008). Notably, Imbert’s works are typologically oriented: she applied to Homeric Greek the category of ‘relational preverbs’ (cf. Chapter 3), which Craig & Hale (1988) identified as being among the preverbs in Rama (a Chibchan language). Accordingly, Imbert argued that Homeric Greek multiple preverbs developed from previous postpositions, as Craig & Hale showed for Rama. Zanchi (2014) also investigated Homeric multiple preverbs and their origins, but came to different conclusions from Imbert’s: according to Zanchi, multiple preverbs are believed to have developed from original adverbs, rather than from postpositions (cf. Chapter 5).
Until now, there have been no studies focusing specifically on multiple preverbs in Old Church Slavic, although both Fil’ (2011) and Zanchi & Naccarato (2016) take into account both Old Russian and Old Church Slavic data. Instead, multiple preverbs and their functions in modern Slavic languages have received much attention: for example, multiple preverbs are investigated in Czech by Filip (2003), in Bulgarian by Istratkova (2004), in Serbian by Milićević (2004), and in Russian, among others, by Babko-Malaya (1999), Filip (1999, 2003), Ramchand (2004), Romanova (2004), Svenonius (2004a, 2004b), and Tatevosov (2008, 2009). However, the system of multiple preverbs in modern Slavic turns out to be completely different from that of Old Church Slavic (cf. Chapter 6).
Along with this relative dearth of studies on multiple preverbs, it is worth mentioning another crucial gap in the relevant literature. Specifically, virtually no current studies integrate scholars’ conclusions about the origin, functions, and developments of preverbs in different languages. In order to gain a precise, and at the same time more comprehensive, understanding of the common reasons behind the behavior and historical development of preverbs, it is imperative that such an investigation takes place. For example, the above-mentioned concept of “accretion” or “recomposition” was coined by Rossiter (2004) and McCone (2006) for Old Irish, and – to my knowledge – never extended beyond its original scope. A second case in point is the so-called “Vey-Schooneveld effect”, which basically accounts for the development of Slavic preverbs into aspectual markers as a reanalysis triggered by semantic redundancy. This hypothesis was developed within Slavic linguistics and virtually was never tested elsewhere (a limited exception is Latin linguistics; cf. Chapter 6, fn. 6). As a final example, Viti (2008a, 2008b) connected the development of Homeric preverbs to markers of actionality (and transitivity) with their ability to draw anaphoric reference to discourse-active (i.e. topical) participants. Although Boley (2004) and others also regarded preverbs as elements contributing to textual cohesion, and Friedrich (1987), Coleman (1991) and Cuzzolin (1995) spoke about “discourse-oriented grammaticalization” for Latin (and generally Indo-European) preverbs, similar analyses were never performed on a wider language sample.
Thus, the choice to investigate relatively underrepresented phenomena such as multiple preverbs in a relatively wide sample of Indo-European languages aims to be a first contribution to fill the literature gaps outlined above. In particular, Vedic and Homeric Greek were selected as they represent comparably early stages of development, in which preverbs retain most of their assumed original meanings, functions, and syntactic freedom (cf. Section 1.3 for the chronology of their attestation; the most ancient attested Indo-European language, Hittite, was not included in this investigation, as it represents a divergent and to some extent problematic development, on which see Chapter 3, fn. 31). By contrast, Old Church Slavic offers a glimpse into the initial steps toward one of the possible later developments of preverbs: specifically, their subsequent grammaticalization into fully-fledged aspectual markers. In parallel, Old Irish, with its flourishing usage of multiple preverbs, provides an excellent touchstone to assess another development that preverbs may undergo: specifically, their lexicalization into semantically idiosyncratic or unpredictable composite items.
1.2.Aims and structure of the study
The aims of this work can be subcategorized as follows: (a) language-internal goals; (b) comparative goals; (c) wide-ranging goals. To begin with, for each language of the sample, the present investigation aims to (i) describe the full array of multiple preverb formations in terms of preverb combinations, verbal roots, and their frequencies; (ii) assess the extent to which multiple preverbs underwent lexicalization or grammaticalization; (iii) understand the morphosyntactic status of multiple preverbs; (iv) detect the meanings of preverbs in multiple preverb combinations; (v) provide insights into the formation process of verbs modified by multiple preverbs and preverb ordering.
Regarding (b) goals, this work seeks to (i) compare multiple preverb formations, multiple preverb combinations, the verbal bases multiple preverb formations contain, and preverb ordering; (ii) compare the statuses of multiple preverbs in the above-mentioned languages; (iii) identify, describe, and motivate common semantic shifts. With the most general level (c) goals, the study aims to (i) provide, within a relatively limited data-sample, more detailed reasons preverbs underwent the well-known lexicalization and grammaticalization; (ii) identify the pattern of formation of multiple preverb verbs; (iii) integrate references that focus on different languages to acquire a more general view of the common processes of development and their motivations.
In order to meet these goals, the present investigation takes into account a number of morphological, semantic, and syntactic parameters, which are briefly described below:
the position of preverbs with respect to that of the other pieces of preverbal morphology; the sandhi effects undergone by the elements that make up the formation; the position of the accent; when relevant, the metrical constraints that may influence the placement of preverbs and univerbation;
multiple preverb verbs’ degree of semantic compositionality; preverbs’ degree of polysemy in multiple preverb combinations;
preverbs’ potential displacement from the modified verbal base, the range, and the type of such displacement; preverbs’ obligatoriness; preverbs’ repetition outside the preverbal context; argument structure of multiple preverb verbs.
The present work is organized as follows. This introduction continues with brief descriptions of the texts selected for the current investigation. I focus on philological metadata, including dating, geographical origin, author, content, and textual tradition, as far as these pertain to the linguistic amalgam that such written records transmit to us. The introduction ends with a few methodological caveats relating to the usage of the so-called “corpus languages” (in Cuzzolin & Haverling’s 2010 terms) for research on historical linguistics.
Chapter 2 provides an overview of the theoretical background that the linguist needs to study preverbs and their developments in this language sample. Understandably, given the broad geographic and chronological distribution of these languages (cf. Sections 1.3 and 1.4 below), preverbs show very distinct behaviors and thus require varied analytical tools. On the one hand, the frameworks of Cognitive Grammar, of spatial relations, and of Semantic Roles are needed to analyze the basic meanings of preverbs and their paths of lexicalization. On the other hand, the categories of aspect and actionality are also crucial to frame the developments of preverbs that are due to grammaticalization.
Chapter 3 provides the reader with an overview of preverbs both inside and outside Indo-European. The first section, which deals with Indo-European, opens with a working definition of preverbs and a description of their functions. It then discusses their positional properties in ancient and modern Indo-European languages and their origin. Lastly, it addresses preverbs as a typological and a terminological problem, introduces the terminology adopted in this work, and explains the reasons behind the outlined terminological choices (for the sake of clarity, it is worth establishing the fact that I consistently call multiple preverbs+verbs combinations ‘composites’ rather than ‘compounds’). Then, a section follows on the specific research topic: multiple preverbs. The last section of the chapter offers some typological insights on Finno-Ugric, Caucasian, Amerindian, and Northern Australian preverbs, insofar as their behavioral properties and paths of development may pertain to our understanding of Indo-European preverbs.
The analysis unfolds in Chapters 4–7, starting with Vedic, going through Homeric Greek and Old Church Slavic, and concluding with Old Irish. All of these chapters are organized in a consistent way. The first section outlines the state of the art on preverbs and multiple preverbs in each language and provides information on their categorial status. The second section then goes on to display quantitative data on multiple preverbs: specifically, the catalogues of (i) multiple preverb composites, (ii) multiple preverb combinations, (iii) verbal roots modified by multiple preverbs together with their frequencies. For Old Church Slavic and Old Irish, the Greek and Latin counterparts of multiple preverb composites are also provided.
The third section addresses various issues relating to the form of composites: (a) possible sandhi phenomena occurring between their elements; (b) the relative positioning of preverbs with respect to other pieces of preverbal morphology; (c) in the case of Old Church Slavic, the interaction between preverbs and Slavic secondary verbal suffixes expressing (im)perfectivity. The fourth section analyzes the semantics of preverbs occurring in multiple preverb composites and the semantic compositionality of multiple preverb composites. It also focuses on a number of particularly interesting semantic developments, in order to show how new abstract meanings relate to the basic one via cognitive metaphors. It concludes with a table summarizing the meanings of preverbs as they occur in multiple preverb composites. The fifth section follows dealing with the syntax of multiple preverbs and/or the argument structure of multiple preverb composites. It explores (a) the possible alternative constructions to multiple preverb combinations (i.e. the ‘mobility’ of preverbs); (b) their optionality; (c) their ability to function as transitivizing morphemes; (d) their inclination to be repeated outside the preverbal context; (e) their capacity for referring back to previously mentioned or discourse-active participants.
The final section of Chapters 4–7 investigates the reasons behind preverb ordering, which is understood to originate from the interplay of different factors: (a) semantic and cognitive motivations, most notably redundancy; (b) textual motivations, such as the reference to discourse-active participants; (c) historical motivations, such as specific etymological origins of particular preverbs; (d) contact-relating motivation, including calquing from Greek or Latin.
The final chapter of this work, Chapter 8, summarizes the analyses presented in the preceding four chapters, compares their results, and offers general concluding remarks.
1.3.Corpora of the present study
1.3.1.The R̥g-Veda
The R̥gVeda (from √r̥c- ‘praise, verse’ + veda ‘knowledge’) represents the most ancient Indian collection (sam̥hitā‘put together’) of hymns (sūktas (literally) ‘well said’) addressed to the Vedic gods, mantras, magic spells, and sacred formulas. It belongs with the four canonical sacred texts of Hinduism, known as the Vedas, which also include the Sāmaveda ‘veda of chants’, the Yajurveda ‘veda of the sacrifices’, and the Atharvaveda ‘veda of the magic spells’. Together, they constitute the so-called “early Vedic” or “mantra language”, the most ancient variety of Old Indo-Aryan. Together with the Vedas, the Vedic corpus also comprises later prose texts: the Brāhmaṇas, the Āraṇyakas, the Upaniṣads, and the Sūtras. Early Vedic can be considered a north-western dialect and as such is close to Avestan, whereas later Vedic shows many features of the central Vedic dialects, which approximate this variety to Classical Sanskrit. In particular, the language of the Āraṇyakas and Upaniṣads seems to attest an intermediate stage to that of the Sūtras, which is very close to Classical Sanskrit (Macdonell 1916: 1ff.).
In this work, I only take into account the R̥gVeda, which is undoubtedly the most ancient among the sam̥hitās: while the R̥gVeda is mentioned in the Sāmaveda, the Yajurveda, and the Atharvaveda, the R̥gVeda itself contains no references to these three other Vedic collections. The R̥gVeda is also one among the oldest extant texts in any Indo-European language. Philological and linguistic evidence suggests that the R̥gVeda was composed in the north-western region of the Indian subcontinent, most likely between 1500–1200BC, though a wider time frame of 1700–1100BC has also been proposed (cf. further Witzel 1995; Mallory & Douglas 1997; Anthony 2007; Kulikov 2017). The R̥gVedic hymns certainly post-date the Indo-Iranian separation (about 2000BC) and probably the Indo-Aryan Mitanni documents (1400BC).
The R̥gVeda is organized in ten books, known as maṇḍalas (literally) ‘circles’, of varying antiquity and length, for a total of 1028 hymns. The hymns in turn consist of individual stanzas (r̥cas ‘praises’), which can be further subdivided into metrical units (pāda ‘foot’) (cf. Chapter 4). Different sections of the R̥gVeda can be assigned to different chronological layers. The maṇḍalas II-VII (‘family books’) constitute the oldest and the shortest part of the collection (‘early R̥g-Vedic’); maṇḍalas I, X, and part of VIII (so-called Vālakhilya) are the latest additions (‘late R̥g-Vedic’); maṇḍalas VIII-IX are chronologically heterogeneous.
1.3.2.The Homeric poems
The Iliad and the Odyssey are two epic poems (for a total of about 28000 lines) that chiefly recount the last weeks of the Trojan War and the tribulations that Odysseus experienced when returning to Ithaca after the fall of Troy.
The Homeric epic is composed in hexameters, that is, lines made up of six (héx ‘six’) feet, which in turn comprise regular alternations of light/short and heavy/long syllables, interrupted by regular patterns of metrical pauses (cf. Chapter 5). The variety transmitted by the epic tradition is basically an archaic eastern Ionic, enriched by an amalgam of Mycenean and Aeolic features, as well as by a number of other archaic traits that cannot easily be ascribed to any particular dialect or region (Horrocks 2010: 44).
This arguably artificial admixture can be explained by taking into account that, although one usually refers to their author as Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey are actually examples of oral poetic diction (Lord 1960; Parry 1971). Most of the early epic bards, likely going back to the Bronze Age (Horrocks 1997, 2010), repeated, or better artistically recomposed, the poems during public performances, by drawing on a conventional range of recurrent narrative themes and of ready-made dictions to fit such themes into the meter (so-called “formulas”, that is, “group[s] of words which [are] regularly employed under the same metrical conditions to express a given essential idea”; cf. Lord 1960: 30). As a consequence, though the Iliad and the Odyssey were probably recorded in writing during the 8th century BC, they preserve more ancient layers of the Greek language, from at least two centuries earlier, in the shape of formulas, precisely by virtue of this peculiar process of composition. Therefore, the Homeric poems are of inestimable value for linguistic reconstruction (Watkins 1976). Through this passage from oral to written transmission, the texts are likely to have been updated by their editors, though without seriously damaging the poets’ traditional narrative and stylistic repertoire (Horrocks 2010: 46).
The basis for the modern editions of the poems emerges from the versions produced by the Hellenistic philologists (4th–1st centuries BC). They in turn had at their disposal different previous editions, which could have been either earlier or contemporary, either personal (kat’ándra ‘according to a man’) or official (katà póleis ‘according to towns’). All in all, the Homeric text was fluid: both the bards who put together the Homeric texts and the editors who established their official form used varieties of Greek different from the original language of the oral tradition.
1.3.3.The Codices Zographensis, Marianus, and Suprasliensis
Old Church Slavic (or Slavonic) is the linguistic variety attested in some of the oldest Slavic written records, which date back to the 10th–11th centuries AD. These records were not contemporary with Constantine (i.e. Cyril) and Methodius’ mission of Christianization of ancient Moravia (a region located somewhere in the Danube Basin), which crucially triggered the translation of Christian sacred texts from the Greek of the Septuagint and Byzantine Greek into the language of the Slavs (Marcialis 2007). However, as first shown by August Leskien, a chronologically consistent and relatively old group of extensive manuscripts can be identified and employed as a canonical source to describe the system of Old Church Slavic.
The Slavic variety attested in this canon does not represent any particular Slavic regional dialect, but rather a literary language used by Slavs of different regions as a shared linguistic conduit within the Christian community (cf. Drinka 2011). Nonetheless, it has the general flavor of an early eastern Balkan Slavic (or Bulgaro-Macedonian) variety, and as such has also been labeled as Old Bulgarian or Old Macedonian (Lunt 1965: 4). As noted above, Old Church Slavic texts are translations from original Greek sources, which boasted a prestigious literary tradition and outstanding authority. For these reasons, Old Church Slavic has been frequently considered to be deeply influenced by the Greek originals at different linguistic layers, ranging from syntax (Lunt 1977; MacRobert 1986) to the lexicon (cf. Chapter 6; see also Ziffer 2005; Drinka 2011).
Among the manuscripts contained in the Old Church Slavic canon, this work examines the most ancient ones, i.e. Codex Zographensis and Codex Marianus, and the most extensive one, i.e. Codex Suprasliensis (Lunt 1965: 7, 9). The Codex Zographensis and Codex Marianus are two of the so-called tetraevangelia, that is, full versions of the Gospels, both primarily written in Glagolitic script (cf. Lunt 1965: 15ff. for more information on this script). The Codex Zographensis is made up of 271 folia in standard Glagolitic, plus 17 folia in Macedonian Glagolitic, and later additions in Cyrillic. It covers the Gospels from Mt3.11 to the end of John (though the section Mt16.20–24.20 belongs with the Macedonian addenda). It can be regarded as being phonetically faithful to Cyril and Methodius’ language (i.e. probably south-eastern Macedonian), but it also displays a number of arguably younger morphological features.
The Codex Marianus, made up of 147 folia, contains the Gospel text from Mt5.23 to Jn21.7. It shows a number of linguistic deviations from the Cyril and Methodius’ language, which can be possibly motivated either by northern Macedonian or by Serbian influence. The Codex Suprasliensis, written entirely in Cyrillic, includes as many as 285 folia and covers different narrative materials. It mainly comprises a menaeum for the month of March, that is, a collection of saints’ lives for daily reading, enriched by a number of sermons for Holy Week and Easter. The language variety that it employs comes from a region located somewhere in central or eastern Bulgaria and is undoubtedly later than the language of the two above-mentioned tetraevangelia. Its Greek sources have not come down to us, which makes it difficult to precisely identify the constructions clearly demonstrating Greek influence (cf. Chapter 6).
1.3.4.The Milan and the Priscian Glosses
The fundamental sources for the linguistic study of Old Irish consist of glosses on Latin manuscripts, which have been assembled in the two volumes of the Thesaurus palaeohibernicus (Stokes & Strachan 1901–1903), of which the Würzburg Glosses on the Pauline Epistles, the Milan Glosses and the Priscian Glosses constitute the largest portions. These collections of glosses represent archaic prose texts, which came down to us in more or less contemporary manuscripts. Thus, they did not undergo the major morphosyntactic and orthographic updating that altered most texts surviving only via later transcriptions. Nevertheless, due to the nature of short texts, glosses may be fluid: (a) when copying brief notes, the scribe may both omit a gloss and also add further glosses; (b) additional glosses can also come from a manuscript different from the exemplar that was originally copied (cf. Hofman 1993).
In this work, the largest collection, i.e. the Milan Glosses, and the Priscian Glosses, which are extremely important due to their lexicographic richness (cf. Chapter 7), are taken into account. The Milan Glosses contain Old Irish interlinear and marginal explanations on, and translation of, a Latin commentary on the Psalms (manuscript Ambrosianus C301, now preserved in Milan). The manuscript dates back to the end of the 8th–9th centuries AD and reached Milan via Bobbio, after being written down most likely in Ireland. The earlier Latin commentary and the slightly later glosses and translations into Old Irish seem to be carried out by two different hands, as the glossator occasionally expresses hesitations as to the reading of the Latin commentary. Later on, a third scribe, probably equipped with better Latin skills, added a few corrections and the incipits of two Old Irish poems, now hardly readable. The main scribe, who signs himself as Diarmait, has often been blamed for having worked with less precision than the scribes who compiled the Würzburg Glosses; hence, unsupported spellings and slips of the pen are frequent (McCone 1985b; GOI4–7). Based mainly on phonological evidence, the Irish variety of the Milan Glosses has been said to be later than that of the Würzburg Glosses, but earlier than that of the Priscian Glosses (however, this is at present still matter of debate; cf. McCone 1985b; Roost 2013). As first shown by Strachan (1901), Latin massively influenced the Irish texts at different linguistic levels: most notably for the purposes of the present work, Latin arguably played a role in the coinage of new Irish words and composites (cf. further Chapter 7; Strachan 1901; Strokes & Strachan 1901–1903; McCone 1985b).
The Priscian Glosses are made up of marginal and interlinear comments on a translation of Priscian’s Institutiones Grammaticae (5th–6th centuries AD) into Old Irish. They survived to the present thanks to a number of manuscripts, among which Cod. Sang.904 is the largest and contains all glosses that also occur in all other manuscripts. It comes from St. Gall and may have been written down during the 9th century in Ireland. The St. Gall glosses were compiled by two hands, which transcribed from the same original, plus minor later addenda. The language of this collection is said to be heterogeneous; however, it is generally considered later than that of the Milan Glosses, though it also shows a number of archaisms, probably due to the fact that it was compiled from different sources of various ages (Strachan 1903: 470).
1.4.Brief methodological remarks
This work is entirely based on inherently limited corpora: the texts that survived to the present, mainly owing to accidents of the textual tradition, are the only existing texts at linguists’ disposal. Cuzzolin & Haverling (2010: 25) addressed such varieties as “corpus languages”: “[they are] no longer anybody’s native language[s] and what we can know of [them] as […] living language[s] is to be traced in the written material still at our disposal.” Therefore, the picture of a particular language that such materials present is certain to be fragmentary. Joseph & Janda (2003: 19) effectively sum up the consequences of these issues as follows: “no matter how carefully we deal with documentary evidence from the past, we will always be left with lacunae in coverage, with a record that remains imperfect and so confronts us with major chasms in our understanding that must somehow be bridged.”
To begin with, a lack of attestation does not necessarily imply actual absence in the grammar or in the lexicon of a certain language (cf. Joseph & Janda 2003: 15ff. for some examples of “accidental gaps in the historical record”). Moreover, the textual tradition and the manuscript transmission of certain written sources can also be responsible for alterations or/and updating of the originals (cf. in particular Chapter 5). Thus, all above texts constitute instances of intrinsically diachronic corpora, in that they simultaneously attest to different chronological layers of a variety: on the one hand, texts at our disposal are the outcome of centuries of textual tradition; on the other hand, different sections of the same text can date back to different time periods (Sections 3.1–3.4).
All in all, as is discussed in Chapter 2 (see especially Section 2.2.3.3), grammaticalization theory is the most appropriate theoretical tool to deal with such inherently diachronic data: the developments that can be subsumed under the rubric of grammaticalization can be understood as gradual diachronic processes that result in gradient synchronic linguistic categories. This point has proved to be of crucial importance especially for the analysis of Vedic and Homeric multiple preverbs (cf. Chapters 4–5). In addition, by employing the grammaticalization theory and its intrinsic diachronic character, one can also assess the overall development of Indo-European preverbs by analyzing their behavior in sub-varieties that belong to very widely dispersed chronological layers. Specifically, as shown in Table 1, Vedic and Homeric Greek, on the one hand, and Old Church Slavic and Old Irish, on the other, are divided by a time gap of more than one millennium.
LANGUAGE
TEXTS AND MANUSCRIPTS
TIME PERIOD
Vedic
R̥g-Veda
18th–12th centuries BC
Homeric Greek
Iliad,
Odyssey
about 8th century BC
Old Irish
Milan Glosses,
Priscian Glosses
8th–9th centuries AD
Old Church Slavic
Codex Marianus,
Codex Zographensis,
Codex Suprasliensis
10th–11th centuries AD
Tab. 1: Language sample, texts, and dating
Furthermore, the R̥g-Veda, the Homeric poems, and the Old Church Slavic texts represent literary corpora, in terms of their content and aims. Thus, their variety most likely does not faithfully mirror the actual usages of everyday speech (cf. Joseph & Janda 2003: 17–19). In addition, the Vedic hymns and the Homeric poems constitute poetic corpora. As such, they have to meet relatively rigid metrical requirements, which possibly also contributed to distancing the language from daily usage. Occasionally, meter might both constrain syntax in general, and word order in particular, as well as motivate otherwise obscure lexical choices (cf. Chapters 4 and 5, for further discussion and relevant examples).
For the Old Church Slavic texts and for the Old Irish glosses, one must take into account their undeniable interaction with the Greek source- and the Latin main texts. Thus, further issues relating to the employment of parallel (or quasi-parallel) corpora come into play, which have been touched upon in Sections 1.3.3 and 1.3.4, and further discussed in Chapters 6–7. However, with regard to our understanding of the formation process of multiple preverb composites, Greek and Latin equivalents have proved to be crucial, in that they can provide access points to the various degrees of lexicalization and semantic change affecting multiple preverb composites.
2.Theoretical background: Analytical tools for the study of preverbs
2.1.Cognitive Grammar
In this work, I adopt the theoretical framework of Cognitive Grammar, in which grammatical forms are conceived as meaningful: the difference between grammatical and lexical meanings essentially lies in their degree of abstractness. Thus, syntax and semantics are understood as a continuum: “lexicon and grammar form a gradation consisting solely in assemblies of symbolic structures” (Langacker 2008: 5). The meanings of the elements of grammar emerge as the concepts associated with linguistic expressions. Such concepts are grounded on elementary semantic structures, which in turn are based on humans’ perception and spatio-physical experience (cf. e.g. Talmy 1983; Lakoff 1987; Langacker 1987), as shown in Section 1.1.
2.1.1.Space: the basic domain of human cognition
Human beings’ perception, experience, and conceptualizations are mediated and constrained by human bodies: this is what is meant by “embodiment” and “embodied cognition”. Embodied experience gives shape to conceptual structure: the world, as sensed by organs of perception, constitutes the basis of conceptual structure, that is, of human thoughts and concepts (cf. among many others, Lakoff 1987; Lakoff & Johnson 1980; Langacker 1987; Svorou 1994). Furthermore, if embodied experience shapes our conceptual structure, it must also constitute the foundation of meaning, that is, of concepts expressed by means of human language. This implies that meaning must be mediated through human perception: all concepts, both concrete and abstract, are grounded in terms of spatio-physical experience.
Therefore, in Cognitive Grammar, space is regarded as one of the basic domains of human cognition, as it does not seem to be understood through other cognitive domains, and provides the basis for understanding other more abstract domains (Lakoff & Johnson 1980). More generally, any set of concepts that cannot be described by means of another set of concepts can be regarded as a basic domain. By contrast, any domain that needs at least one other domain to be conceptualized is abstract (Croft 1993).
Linguistic forms, which are humans’ means for expressing thoughts and concepts, are initially associated with a concrete and spatial meaning, which constitutes the starting point for developing more abstract meanings and functions. The mapping from a concrete to an abstract conceptual domain is possible thanks to the cognitive mechanisms of metonymy and metaphor. Importantly, several metonymic and metaphorical meanings are regularly associated with specific linguistic sources, and later on conventionalized (cf. Section 2.1.2). In conventionalized lexical items, it can become difficult to trace back to the original spatial meaning, or to understand the links between the developed abstract and the basic spatial meanings from a synchronic point of view (cf. Section 2.2.5 on lexicalization; Chapters 6 and 7 on Old Church Slavic and Old Irish preverbs for cases in point). Thus, a given linguistic form is usually polysemous: each of its meanings can rely on the basic or on the abstract domains that pertain to that linguistic form. All meanings of a linguistic form are organized around its basic meaning in what can be called “structured polysemy” (e.g. Tyler & Evans 2003): meanings directly or indirectly relate to the center or to each other in a motivated radial structure (e.g. Lakoff 1987).
2.1.2.Going from spatial to abstract domains: metaphor and metonymy
Metaphor is a way to conceptualize a cognitively difficult domain in terms of an easier domain; in other words, through metaphor it is possible to understand “conceptually complex phenomena in terms of less complex ones” (Claudi & Heine 1986: 299). Thus metaphor establishes a mapping between two different conceptual domains that, despite being equated, remain distinct (Croft 1993). Examples (1)–(2) show two different uses of the English preposition in:
Luke is in the kitchen.
Luke is in love.
Sentences (1) and (2) contain similar linguistic items: the proper name Luke, the third person singular of the verb to be, the preposition in, and a common noun, kitchen in (1), determined by the article the, and love in (2). However, while the noun kitchen denotes a real Location where Luke is, the noun love denotes a state that Luke experiences. Thus, the same verb to be and the same preposition in express a spatial relation in (1), but a metaphorical relation in (2). This shift toward the abstract plane is accounted for by conceptual metaphor: the room kitchen physically contains Luke; in a comparable way, the state of being in love is understood as a container in which Luke is metaphorically located. As Lakoff & Johnson (1980: 32ff.) point out, the same metaphors can be responsible for multiple semantic changes: for example, states are often conceptualized as containers (the so-called “Container metaphor”). Within this work, this tenet is borne out both within a single language and also across different languages: Sections 4.4, 5.4, 6.4, and 7.4 are devoted to the semantics of multiple preverbs, Chapters 4–7 show that morphemes with similar basic spatial meanings also tend to develop similar abstract meanings (cf. further Chapter 8).
Metonymy occurs when an entity of a certain conceptual domain is referred to by means of an entity belonging to a contiguous or identical conceptual domain (Lakoff & Johnson 1980: 29; Croft 1993). Within the same domain, such entities are connected by means of humans’ encyclopedic experience (Lakoff 1987). For example, in (3) below, the expression the ham sandwich does not refer to an actual sandwich, rather to the person who ordered it. The entity ham sandwich belongs to the conceptual domain that can be labelled as [CUSTOMER], because a customer in a restaurant is presumed to order something to eat or drink.1
The ham sandwich is waiting for his check.
Notably, example (3) cannot be regarded as a case of personification metaphor, given that human qualities are not ascribed to the said sandwich. Rather, the sandwich is a part of the conceptual domain of the person ordering it. By contrast, example (4) contains an istance of personification:
Inflation has attacked the foundation of our economy. Inflation has pinned us to the wall.
In example (4), a non-human entity, inflation, is conceived or conceptualized as human owing to the metaphor INFLATION IS A HUMAN BEING (Lakoff & Johnson 1980: 28ff.).2 This metaphoric extension only selects one feature of the source-entity, specifically ‘a human being can be an adversary’, according to the personification INFLATION IS AN ADVERSARY. Categories of entities, including human beings, show a number of properties that can be either viewed as a whole or observed one by one. Categories of entities seem to be organized as so-called Gestalten, that is, structures in terms of which our perception of the world is given a shape, and that exhibit a number of properties, including that of being “at once holistic and analyzable” (Lakoff 1977: 246). Thus, metaphors can also be based on a single property possessed by a category of entities, as in (4).
2.1.3.The conceptualization of the spatial event
Given that spatial concepts are cognitively basic for human beings (cf. Section 2.1.1), it is worth discussing how they are conceptualized. Spatial phenomena can be viewed from different standpoints, and consequently conceptualized in different ways. One of the most important varying parameters, in terms of conceptualization, is “prominence” (in Langacker’s 1987, 2008 terms). Prominence is a kind of asymmetry related to the focus of attention, that is, to what a linguistic expression describes as foreground or background (Langacker 2008: 68). A discussion of different types of prominence follows.
2.1.3.1.The first type of prominence: the profile-base asymmetry
The concept of profile is introduced by Langacker (1987) by means of the word spoke. In order to understand the meaning of spoke, Langacker writes, one must also be aware of what a wheel is. The segment spoke is defined in relation with the structure of the whole wheel. Langacker describes the relation holding between the spoke and the wheel as the relation of a “profile” of a concept with respect to its “base”. The profile is the precise and narrow concept expressed by a word, whereas the base can be defined as the encyclopedic knowledge or conceptual structure presupposed by the said word.1
As Croft (1993) points out, the profile and the base comprise an inseparable pair: a profile needs a base against which it is individuated. Symmetrically, a base cannot be individuated without the profiles that are defined with respect to it. The verb “to profile” corresponds to the noun “profile”. Thus, both these formulations are possible: spoke functions as a profile of the base wheel, or spoke profiles a certain part of the base wheel. In a similar way, the meaning of wheel is also the base for hub and rim, as shown in Figure 1 below:
Fig. 1: The profile-base asymmetry: wheel vs. spoke, rim, wheel (from Langacker 2008: 67)
An expression can profile either a thing, as in Figure 1, or a relationship. Therefore, the concept of profile can also be employed to describe spatial and non-spatial relations and thus the meaning of preverbs. For example, the Homeric motion verb eis-ana-baínō ‘go up to’ profiles the movement of an entity going along a trajectory in a certain direction. This verb contains two preverbs: the former, eis- ‘to’, profiles the direction of motion (Goal); the latter, ana- ‘up’, instead profiles its orientation and Path, specifying that the verb indicates an upward motion. The whole spatial relation expressed by the compound eis-ana-baínō implies that there are a path, an entity that moves along that path, and an entity to be reached, which constitute the basis of the spatial relation.
2.1.3.2.The second type of prominence: the Trajector-Landmark asymmetry
As anticipated in discussing the meaning of the verb eis-ana-baínō ‘go up to’, entities are usually located with respect to other entities functioning as reference points (Talmy 1983; Langacker 1987). This way of locating entities implies a further asymmetrical relation holding between the located entity and the reference-entity.
Talmy (1983) introduces the terms “Figure” and “Ground”, borrowed from Gestalt psychology (Köhler 1929; Koffka 1935), to describe this asymmetrical relation: the Figure is the object to be located, while the Ground is the object with respect to which the Figure is located. In reference works, other terms are also used to identify the participants in a spatial relation, including the pairs “locans”-“locatum” and “referent”-“relatum” (e.g. Rappaport & Levin 1985; Levinson 1996). In this work, I opt for Langacker’s (1987, 2008) terminology, which describes Talmy’s Figure and Ground in terms of focus of attention. Langacker argues that, while profiling a spatial relation holding between two entities, one of such entities is always more focused than the other one. Langacker calls the more prominent and located entity the Trajector (henceforth TR), and the less prominent reference-entity Landmark (henceforth LM).
Langacker employs the concepts of TR and LM beyond the cognitive domain of space. Following his lead, let us take as an example the kinship relations of having a child and having a parent. Both relations share the base, that is, the domain of KINSHIP RELATIONS. In addition, they profile the same kinship relation, as they involve two participants, of whom one is the child or the parent of the other. What changes is the directionality of the relation, and thus their TR-LM alignment: having a child is primarily concerned with parents, who thus function as a TR. By contrast, having a parent is a predication concerning the child, who in turn functions as a TR. Figure 2 shows both the profile-base and TR-LM asymmetries:
Fig. 2: Kinship relations: profile-base and TR-LM asymmetries (Langacker 2008: 68)
In Figure 2 (a)–(d), bold highlights the profile. Both in (a) and in (b), the profile is a human entity, either the parent or the child. They are both characterized by the relative role that they play in the kinship relation, which is conceptualized as the base. However, in both (c) and (d), the shared kinship relation is profiled. The semantic contrast between have a parent and have a child resides in their opposite directionalities, and thus their TR-LM alignments.
2.1.3.3.The parameters of the spatial event
So far, I have discussed static spatial events, in which a TR is located with respect to a LM. However, a spatial event can also imply motion: in such events, the TR moves with respect either to a stable or to another moving entity (LM). In each case, one recognizes an asymmetrical relation between a TR and a LM. Several parameters can contribute to such asymmetrical relation, including the number of the moving entities, the direction of movement, the path of movement, containment, contact, orientation, or a combination of these (Svorou 1994: 24).
Motion events can be conceptualized as having directionality, or a deictic orientation. TRs can be directed toward or away from LMs: for example, the English verb to go implies a motion away from the speaker, whereas to come implies a direction toward the speaker. Furthermore, the directionality of certain entities can be specified on a vertical axis, such as in the following Italian verbs: salire ‘to go up’ entails an upward motion, while scendere ‘to go down’ a downward motion.
In addition, the conceptualization of a motion event subsumes a trajectory, that is, the path covered by a TR with respect to a LM. However, the trajectory can either be profiled or remain in the base. For example, the Ancient Greek verbs pḗgnumi ‘fix’ and bállō ‘throw’ can take either the dative or the accusative, both expressing the direction of the motion. The dative and the accusative cases differ in their profile: the dative only profiles the endpoint of the trajectory, while the accusative profiles it as a whole.
Both location and motion events can involve the containment of the TR inside the LM, conceptualized as a container. As for location events, the TR can either be placed inside, near, or in contact with the LM (“inessive”, “adessive”, and “superessive” location, respectively). As regards motion events, the TR can move either toward the inside of a LM, toward its vicinity, or toward a contact position with the LM (“illative”, “allative”, and “superallative” motion). Conversely, the TR
