The Prehistory of Mediopassive Verbs in Indo-European: New Evidence from Hittite
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- Yoshida Kazuhiko
- Kyoto University
Bibliographic Information
- Other Title
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- 印欧語における中・受動態動詞の先史―ヒッタイト語からの新たな根拠―
Abstract
<p>The morphological changes in 3 sg. mediopassive endings, -a → -ta and -a → -atta, were still operating during attested Hittite history. This fact, together with the nonexistence of -atta in Old Hittite manuscripts and the retention of original a-class status in 3 sg. imperatives of many ta-class mediopassives, shows that 3 sg. mediopassive verbs in -ta do not go back to a very early period. Contrary to the generally accepted view that both *-to and *-o must be reconstructed as 3 sg. mediopassive endings in the parent language, *-to cannot have been created when the Anatolian branch split off from the rest of the Indo-European family. The remodeled ending *-to was undoubtedly due to the influence of the corresponding active 3 sg. *-ti (primary ending) and *-t (secondary ending). The fact that -ta (< *-to) is overwhelmingly favored by preterite mediopassives in Hittite provides us with decisive evidence that many ta-class mediopassives were created after the affrication which occurred in pre-Hittite and applied to 3 sg active primary (i.e., present) *-ti (> *-tsi), but not to 3 sg. active secondary (i.e., preterite) *-t. The morphological history of Hittite mediopassive verbs clarified in this paper shows that Hittite still preserves an archaism of remarkable antiquity which plays an important role in reconstructing the Proto-Indo-European verbal system.</p>
Journal
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- GENGO KENKYU (Journal of the Linguistic Society of Japan)
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GENGO KENKYU (Journal of the Linguistic Society of Japan) 130 (0), 43-82, 2006
The Linguistic Society of Japan
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Details 詳細情報について
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- CRID
- 1390007912126299392
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- NII Article ID
- 130008088362
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- ISSN
- 21856710
- 00243914
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- Text Lang
- ja
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- Data Source
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- JaLC
- CiNii Articles
- KAKEN
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- Abstract License Flag
- Disallowed