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Traces of *o-Grade Middle Root Aorists in Baltic and Slavic

Author(s): Miguel Villanueva Svensson


Reviewed work(s):
Source: Historische Sprachforschung / Historical Linguistics, Bd. 119 (2006), pp. 295-317
Published by: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht (GmbH & Co. KG)
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Traces of *o-Grade Middle Root Aorists
in Baltic and Slavic
1. Baltic and Slavic show a
large
number of verbs with root vocali sm
*-o-
(Lith. -a-,
OCS
-o-)
that in
many
cases must
go
back to Indo-Euro-
pean
verbal formations with
apophonic
or invariant
*-o-grade.1 Leaving
aside causatives and
iteratives,
denominatives or verbs of obscure ori-
gin,
some
subgroups
can be established which
presumably
reflect dif-
ferent
Indo-European origins.
2. Some verbs are stative in
meaning
and almost
certainly go
back to
Indo-European (dereduplicated) perfects.
Relics of athematic inflection
are still
preserved
in OCS 1
sg.
vd,
OPruss. 2
sg.
waisei
know"
or in
the
present participle
OCS
gorst- burning",
but old
perfects usually
surface as
*-i-presents
in Balto-Slavic: Lith.
gari, garti,
OCS
gorj,
gorti
burn",
OCS
boj, bojati s fear" (cf.
Ved.
bibhya fear"),
OCS
polj, polti
flame", bolj,
boleti
be sick",
Lith.
gali, galti
be
able, can",
perhaps
Lith.
stovi,
stovti
stand"2 (cf.
Ved.
tasthu,
Gk.
8GTT|Ka,
Lat.
stet).
3. A
second,
relatively
coherent
group
of
*-o-grade
verbs are transi-
tives that
express
some
type
of violent or iterated action and can be re-
presented by
such
examples
as Lith.
barii,
brti
scold" (:
OCS
borj,
brati
fight"),
kalu,
klti
forge" (:
OCS
kolj,
klati
slaughter"), kapi,
kpti cut down,
fell"
(:
OCS
kopaj, kopati dig")
mal,
malti
grind"
(but *--grade
in OCS
melj,
mieti
grind")
or OCS
bod,
bosti
pierce"
(*-e-grade
in Lith.
bed,
bsti
stick").
Cognates
of these
presents usually
show variation in the root
apo-
phony
between
*-o-,
*-e- and zero. Within Balto-Slavic one
may
com-
pare
Lith. mal with OCS
melj
or Lith. bed with OCS
bod.
Outside
1
Of
course,
*-a- is
phonetically
also
possible,
but
given
the
scarcity
of non
laryngeal
colored */a/ in
Indo-European
it should
only
be assumed if it is
supported by strong
evidence. One of these cases is the thematic
present
Lith.
mag, magti please",
OCS
mog,
mosti
be able",
from an athematic middle
present *mgh-o(r)
still
preserved
in
Ved. make RV 7.97.2
is
able" and
implied by
OHG
magn be
able" <
*mag-ai(-f?).
*lal in this root is assured
by
Gk.
uxoum fight".
The athematic
present
stovmi
(Ruhig)
is a
secondary neologism,
cf.
Stang (1942:
lOlff).
296 Miguel
Villanueva Svensson
Balto-Slavic Lith. mal
agrees
with Goth, malan and Hitt.
malli,
OCS
melj
with Or.
melid,
while zero
grade
is found in Arm.
malem,
Umbr.
kumaltu and MW
main,
Lat. molo
being ambiguous. *-#-grade
is
espe-
cially prominent
in
Baltic,
Slavic and
Germanic,
but
examples
are found
all over the
family. Cognates
in Anatolian
regularly belong
to the hhi-
conjugation.
The historical
explanation
of the
mal/melj type
is
disputed.
Two
basic
approaches
can be
distinguished:
Some authors would subsume the variants with *-e- and zero
grade
under a 'normal' athematic
present (*mlh2-ti, *mlh2-nt)
and assume
some
type
of derived verbal formation at the
origin
of the
*-6>-grade
variants,
such as
reduplicated presents (*m-molh2-ti)
or intensives
(*mlh2-molh2-t).
In Balto-Slavic and Germanic these formations would
have been
regularly dereduplicated
and
eventually
would have elimina-
ted the basic athematic
present
from current use.3
Another
approach
unites the
apophonic
variants into a
single (athe-
matic) paradigm *molh2-l*melh2-l*mlh2-
or
*molh2-l*melh2-
(?m'h2-
be-
ing
a renewed weak
stem).
Jasanoff
(1979,
and later
publications)
em-
phasizes
the
systematic
correlation between
presents
of the
mal/melj
type
and
/i/n'-conjugation
verbs in Anatolian as evidence for a
particular
Indo-European '^-conjugation', functionally
active,
but characterized
by
middle- and
perfect-like endings (1 sg. *-h2e,
2
sg.
*-th2e,
3
sg. *-e)
and root
apophony
*-o-/*-e-
(with
a
strong tendency
to
replace
*-e-
by
zero as the weak
grade
or to
generalize
one of the
vocalisms).
This is not the
place
to
argue
at
length my acceptance
of Jasanoff s
proposal
or
why
I consider the
type *mlh2-e(i), *mlh2--s (yel. sim.)
to
be restricted to the
present
stem in
Indo-European.
4. An inherited
perfect
or a
'^-conjugation' present (or,
for that
matter,
a
reduplicated present
or
intensive)
can
explain reasonably
most
of the Balto-Slavic
*-o-grade primary
verbs with a chance of
being
in-
herited from the
parent language,
but not all verbs enter
naturally
into
these
explanatory
schmas. In
particular, *-o-grade
is found in some in-
transitive 'inchoative' verbs like Lith.
tpti, tampa, tapo become"
or
OCS
pasti, pad,
aor.
padt
fall",
which will be the
object
of the
present
article.
5. OCS
pasti, pad,
aor.
padh
fall" (Russ. past', padu, etc.) probably
owes its
lengthened grade
to Winter's Law
(*pod-
>
*pd-
>
*pd-).
In
principle
both the
present padeth
or the aorist
pade
could be
old,
and we
3
So,
for
instance,
Stang (1942: 39ff,
1966:
333), Klingenschmitt (1982: 1466),
Schae-
fer
(1994: 48ff),
UV
(1998 passim).
Traces of *o-Grade Middle Root Aorists in Baltic and Slavic
297
can assume that either the
present
is back formed to the aorist or the
aorist to the
present.
The root
*ped-
is well known from the noun for
foot"
*pod-l*ped-.
As a verb it is also found in
Indo-Iranian, Germanic,
Armenian and
Latin
pessum
ire
sink
to the
bottom;
be
destroyed".
The Germanic re-
gular strong
verb
(ON feta step; proceed
in",
OE
ge-ft fell")
is of
little interest for
comparative purposes.
Vedic
pad- move,
fall" shows a
characteristic anticausative
paradigm: present pdyate (Av. paiiiite),
'passive'
aorist 3
sg. apodi,
3
pl. apadran, perfect papada.
A middle
root aorist is secured for
Indo-European by
the Vedic
'passive'
aorist
apdi
and so is the
perfect,
which
presumably
underlies the Germanic
paradigm.
As for the
present stem(s)
of this
verb,
Ved.
pbdamna-
ab-
wechselnd fest auftretend" and Arm. hiwcanim
grow
lean,
languish" (<
*pi-bd-ie/o-
<
*pi-pd-ie/o-f point
to a
reduplicated present
in the
parent
language.
The Indo-Iranian
present *pad-ya-m
could be inherited or else
could have been created in this
family according
to a
productive pattern
for anticausatives.
As for
Slavic,
Vaillant
(1966: 153)
derives the thematic aorist
pade-
from the
perfect *pepd-e,
the thematic
present being
derived from the
aorist. A
perfect,
however,
is
badly compromised
with the inchoative
value of
pasti
fall".
Rasmussen
(1988: 3622)
starts from an Indo-
European
intensive
*ped-pd-mi,
the aorist
pade- being
a dislocated im-
perfect.
Machek
(1968: 425)
and
Klingenschmitt (1982: 217) explain
the vocalism of OCS
pade-
as a cross of
*pl-
fall" (Lith. piati, polu
fall")
and
*ped- fall".
Obvious ad hoc solutions like
this, however,
should
only
be considered when all
possible systematic explanations
have been
definitely
ruled out. Schirmer LIV 413
rightly places pa
dh
under the
aorist,
but is unable to
explain
the *-<9-vocalism. While an
Indo-European
athematic middle aorist seems to be the best
option
from
a semantic
point
of
view,
OCS
pade points
to
*pde(-t)
or
*pode(-t)
(with
Winter's
lengthening)
as the immediate
preform,
both
strongly
in
contradiction with the standard reconstruction of the
Indo-European
root
aorist
(*-e-/*-0-
in the
active, *-0- in the
middle).
I will
anticipate
here
my proposal:
OCS
pade
makes a
perfect
word
equation
with the Vedic
'passive'
aorist
apdi
and
permits
as to start from an
Indo-European
middle root aorist
(3 sg.) *pod-e.
6. Lith.
tpti, tampa, tapo (dialectal
also
tape),
Latv.
tapi, topu, tapu
become"
were
successfully etymologized by Stang (1952),
who related
them to Lith.
tpti, tpa,
Latv.
tept, tepju smear",
OCS
teti, tep beat"
4
Cf.
Klingenschmitt (1982: 217).
298 Miguel
Villanueva Svensson
(from
earlier
*smear").
Lith.
tpti
shows also the
meaning
become
infected",5
which favors this
connection,
as observed later
by Stang
himself
(1966: 347).
As for the
origin
of Lith.
tpti,
Latv.
tapt, Stang
starts from an Indo-
European perfect *(te)tp-e *ist
kleben
geblieben,
ist
fortwhrend,
bleibt",
with a semantic shift
*,,bleiben"
-

werden", tpti,
however,
shows no stative
meaning
at
all,
and an inchoative value of this verb
must be
relatively
old to account for the
by-meanings
become
infected"
in Lithuanian and
arrive"
in
Latvian,
which bear all the
appearance
of
semantic archaisms. It thus seems
preferable
to start from an
original
inchoative value of
tpti
and to look for its
origin
in an
Indo-European
verbal formation other than the
perfect.
A middle root aorist
*tp-e,
perfectly parallel
to
*pd-e,
would fit both
formally
and
functionally.
The Lithuanian dialectal
preterite tp points
to another
type
of
present
later
replaced by tampa
:
*tapti, *tapa
or
*
tapia.
As
argued by
Barton
(1980: 270ff),
both
*tapti
and
*tapa
are
problematic
from
several
points
of view.
Tp
is not easier accounted for as the
preterite
of
*tapti
than as the
preterite
of
tampa,
cf. liekti : llko. While
formally
more
promising,
a thematic
*tapa
is contradicted
by
the
preponderance
of transitives
among raa/-presents,
a feature which seems to be in-
herited in this class. In
addition,
*--preterites
to
raa/-presents
seem to
be a
specific
Lithuanian innovation.6
*tapia
is
formally
without
pro-
blems,
since
*-^/(9-presents
are
paired
with
*--preterites
as far back as
we can trace Proto-Baltic. Because
*-^/o-presents
are
productively
tran-
sitive in
Baltic,
the
replacement
of the
putative *tapia by tampa
is well
motivated,
but because of this same reason it must be
considerably
old
and
certainly pre-Baltic.
An intransitive
*-^/-present
can also be made
responsible
for the
irregular *--preterite
of Lith. mire
{mirti,
mrsta
die")
and
girne (gmti, gmsta,
OLith.
gema
be born").7
The
conju-
gation pattern
we recover here
is,
of
course,
Indo-European
in date. It
was established for the
prehistory
of Slavic
by
Tedesco
(1948).
It is thus
not too
problematic
to reconstruct a
present *tapia
becomes"
on the
evidence of
tp.
Internal evidence thus
permits
us to start from a Pre-
Baltic
paradigm prs. *top-ie/o-,
aor.
(3 sg.) *top-e (-

*top-e/o-),
the
vocalism of the
present *top-ie/o- being
taken from the aorist.
5
Cf.
LKZxv
835.
0
Cf. Stang (1942: 107, 1966: 380), Schmid (1967:
1
19).
7
Cf. Barton
(1980: 267ff).
In both cases a
*-^/o-present
is secured for Indo-Euro-
pean:
Ved.
mriyte,
Lat.
morior,
Slavic
*mbr-je-
in Zo
umbreth,
Slov.
mrjm;
Gk.
aivco,
Lat. veni.
Traces of *o-Grade Middle Root Aorists in Baltic and Slavic
299
7. In OCS
pasti
fall"
and Lith.
tpti
become"
we have found two
verbs that can be
reasonably
traced back to
Indo-European
middle root
aorists with *-o-vocalism and a 3
sg. ending
*-e. OCS
pade
finds a
per-
fect
counterpart
in Ved.
apodi,
while the
antiquity
of Lith.
tpoltp
is
only supported by
some tenuous internal
arguments.
The root vocalism and the
3sg. ending
of
*pd-e
and
*top-e,
both
strongly
in contradiction with the classical reconstruction of the middle
root aorist
Huk-t,
will be discussed below
(10).
On the other
hand,
OCS
pade
and Lith.
tpoltp
do not
only
contradict the classical recon-
struction of the
Indo-European
middle root
aorist,
but are also isolated
within Balto-Slavic as well. Our
proposal
builds on the
assumption
that
inchoative verbs as the 2nd Class in Slavic and the nasal infixai and -sta-
presents
in Baltic are
genetically
related to the
Indo-European
middle
root aorist in a number of
cases,
still to be observed in a remodeled
fashion in the Slavic thematic aorist and the Baltic
*--preterite.
These
formations, however,
usually
show zero
grade
of the root and thus
agree
nicely
with the
morphology
of middle root aorists and active thematic
aorists in Greek and Indo-Iranian.
If our
proposal
for OCS
pasti
and Lith.
tpti
is
correct,
we have to
account not
only
for
Indo-European *pd-e, *tp-e,
but also for the
anomalous
preservation
of
*-6>-grade
in these
particular
verbs. What
*pd-e
and
*tp-e
have in common is their root structure TET-. Since
TET- and
(T)RET-roots
are well known for their resistance to
analogical
extension of a
weak,
zero-grade
vocalism,8
we can formulate the
hypo-
thesis that
*pd-e
and
*tp-e
owe the maintenance of the old *--vo-
calism to their root structure.
8. Our
explanation
of OCS
pasti,
Lith.
tpti
invites us to search for
other TET- or
(T)RET-
inchoative
*-ograde
verbs in Baltic and Slavic
that
may
derive from
Indo-European
middle root aorists. The number of
potentially
ancient
*-tf-grade
verbs of this
type
is not
large.
In addition
to Lith.
tpti
and OCS
pasti
I have found the
following
candidates:
8.1. The nasal
present
of Lith.
rsti, randa, rado,
Latv.
rast, rodu,
radu
find"
is
quite unexpected
in a transitive verb. A
very
reasonable
explanation
is
brought
forth
by Stang (1961: 77,
1966:
348):
the mea-
ning
find"
would be
secondary,
due to
polarization
vis--vis the refle-
xive rsti-s
happen,
become;
appear,
be found". We can hence start
from an intransitive *rasti.
Cognates
of this verb include Latv. rads
relative, kinsman",
OCS
rodh
race"
and the causative *rodh-ie/o- in OCS
roditi, rozd,
Latv.
8
Cf. Schindler
(1972: 35ff).
300 Miguel
Villanueva Svensson
radii
give
birth".
Stang
adds Slov. redti
nhren,
durch
Nahrung
erhal-
ten;
sich wachsen lassen" as evidence of
*-e-grade
in this root.
According
to
Stang (1961:
76ff
,1966: 347ff)
rsti
*,,happen,
become;
appear,
be found" would continue a
perfect *(re)rodh-e *ist
hervorge-
wachsen, entstanden,
geworden,
ist vorhanden". As in the case of OCS
pasti
and Lith.
tpti, however,
the semantic
bridge
between the
putative
perfect
and the inchoative value of
rsti(s)
is difficult to account
for,
while a middle aorist *rdh-e would fit
perfectly
both
formally
and
functionally.
8.2. Lith.
sksti, skata,
skto
spring, hop"
is
usually
linked to Lat.
scato,
-ere
(-, -er) gush (forth)".
Lat. scato could
point
to a root
*skat-,
but
Schrijver (1991: 432) argues
for a Latin Sound Law *e > *a
after
plain
velars. If this is the
case,
we can start from Pre-Latin *scete
or
*scet,
from a
normal"
ablauting
root *sket-. The
morphology
and
meaning
of Lith. sksti is
clearly compatible
with a middle aorist
*skt-e.
LKZxn
764 also
gives
a dialectal
preterite
skt,
which reminds
us of
tpo/tp
and could
point
to an earlier intransitive
present
*skatia.
8.3. Lith.
(su-)prsti, -prata, -prato,
Latv.
(sa-)prast, -protu, -pratu
understand"
is
obviously cognate
with Goth,
frapjan
understand" (6th
Class).
It is not clear whether OPruss.
issprestum
understand",
1
pl.
poprestemmai points
to a real
*-e-grade *pret-
or stands for
*prat-?
A
verbal root
*prat-
is in
any
case
necessary
to account for OPruss.
prtin
Rat" (for *prtan),
cf. Lith.
prtas,
Latv.
prats
mind,
intelligence"
(circumflex intonation!).
If OCS
prosit nkov, taSepo; p9"
(Russ. prostj simple", etc.),
Lith.
prstas,
Latv.
prasts simple"
is a
fossilized
participle
of this
verb,
as
per Stang (1966: 345), *prat-
must
have been
present
as a verb in Slavic as
well,
but this
etymology
of
Slavic
prosth
is
disputed.
Nominal forms of this root are well attested not
only
in Baltic
(Lith.
prtas)
and Germanic
(Goth, frapi mind, understanding", frops
intel-
ligent, wise"),
but also in Tocharian: Toch. B
eprete resolute",
Toch. A
pratim
decision,
resolution"
(borrowed
into Toch. B as
pratim).10
The
inclusion of Lat.
interpres intermediary, agent; interpreter"
in the set is
more
problematic.
Both. Lith.
prsti
and Goth,
frapjan
are
usually
derived from a
perfect
*pre-prt-e,u
but this
explanation
doesn't account neither for their
semantics nor for their
morphology (6th
Class
-ja-present
in
Gothic).
9
So Smoczynski (2000: 173,
2002:
49).
10
Cf. Adams 1999: 90. 410).
11
Cf.
Stang (1966: 345),
L/V444.
Traces of *o-Grade Middle Root Aorists in Baltic and Slavic
301
Once
again,
the recourse to the
perfect
is determined
by
the
*-o-grade,
but is
unsatisfactory
from other
points
of view. A middle root aorist
*prt-e
is a reasonable solution. The
*-o^/9-present
of Goth,
frapjan
would be difficult to
explain
within Germanic. We have
already
seen
that the concurrent
*--preterites
in
tpoltp,
sktolskt can be
explai-
ned
through
earlier
*-^/o-presents *tap-ia,
*skat-ia,
later
replaced by
infixai or
-sta-presents.
A similar
paradigm present *prot-ie/o-,
aorist
*prot-e(-t)
can therefore be assumed for
-prsti
on the evidence of Goth.
frapjan,
the vocalism of the
present being
borrowed from the aorist.12
8.4. Lith.
kkti, kaka,
kko
set out, start,
go",
used
mostly
with
pre
verbs,
Latv. kakt
zu
Ende kommen".
Stang (1961: 74)
establishes an
original meaning (er)reichen",
that would have derived from a
perfect
*ist
angelangt,
hat das Ziel erreicht". The
perfect *(ke-)kk-e
would
survive either in the
preterite
*kak or as an athematic
present
*kakti.
Some athematic forms are
actually
attested in Old Lithuanian
(pakakti
in
Dauksa,
iskakti in
Bretknas),
which could favor the later
view,
but
given
the
secondary
nature of
many
athematic
presents
in Old Lithua-
nian and the
scarcity
of attestations of
-kakti,
the
weight
of these
examples
must be
regarded
as doubtful. On the evidence assembled so
far in favor of
*-6>-grade
middle aorists in
Baltic,
it is
tempting
to
posit
a
middle root aorist *kk-e at the bases of Lith. kkti. Old Lithuanian
-kakti, however,
counsels caution in this
particular
case. Outside
Baltic,
Stang (1961: 75,
1966:
346) suggests relating
kakti to Slavic cekatil
cakati
wait",13
with a semantic
development
^reichen, strecken,
grei-
fen"
-
>
*nach
etw.
greifen,
sich nach etw. strecken"
-
>
*
erwarten"
-

warten".
Turning
now to
Slavic,
the
place
where we should look for verbs that
may
have inherited
Indo-European *-o-grade
middle root aorists is ob-
viously
Leskien's Class II. Here Vaillant
(1966:
25
Iff) gives
three verbs
with *-o- vocalism
qui
retiennent l'attention": OCS
kosnti sq touch",
moknti get
wet",
OCS
u-tonti, sink".
All of them
belong
to roots of
the
shape
TET- or
(T)RET- and,
accordingly,
can be
regarded
as serious
candidates to
join
the
type
of verbs we are
studying.
8.5. OCS
kosnti, kosn s,
aor. kose
s touch" (Russ. kosnt'sja,
etc.)
is
etymologically
isolated. A connection with OCS
cesati,
ceso
comb",
Hitt. kiss-mi
comb",
Lith.
ksti,
kas
dig", frequently posi-
12
The vocalism of Goth,
frapjan suggests
that a
process
similar to the one we are
describing
in Baltic and Slavic took
place
in Germanic as well
(cf.
Goth,
ga-daban
happen"
or
wahsjan grow",
as
potential examples),
but this
possibility
will not be
pursued
at
length
here.
13
Cf. SSJA
13,
36 for the data.
302 Miguel
Villanueva Svensson
ted,14
is not
particularly
clear from a semantic
point
of view. In
addition,
neither the nasal
present
nor the *-ovocalism of OCS
kosnti s
find a
good explanation
within this
etymology.
The
morphology
of
kosnti
is
not
easy
to reconcile with the
meaning
of this
verb,
since verbs of Class
II are
characteristically
inchoative. Under the
argumentation
of this
article,
I consider a reasonable
possibility
to derive
kosnti s
from an
Indo-European
middle root aorist *ks-e with an
original meaning *,,got
in
touch", came
near"
(vel. sim.).
8.6. Slavic
moknti get
wet"
(imperfective,
Russ.
mknut',
Poi.
moknqc, etc.).
The root is well attested in Slavic (mociti wet",
mokrh
wet",
moca/mocb
urine"),
Baltic
(Lith. [maku, [maketi in
den
Sumpf
hineingehen",
makti,
maknti
walk, wade; soil,
dirty
with
mud",
maknotas
covered
with
mud",
makn
mud")
and
perhaps
in Alb.
make
Haut (auf Flssigkeiten)",
but
only
the vocalism *mok-
(or
*mak-)
is attested with
certainty.
We cannot be sure that
moknti goes
back to a middle root aorist
*mk-e,
but this remains in
any
case a
pos-
sibility.
8.7. OCS
u-tonti, -ton,
aorist 3
pl. -top sink,
drown
(intr.)" (im-
perfective,
Russ.
tont',
Pol.
tonqc, etc.,
cf. SSJ 19
129-130).
The cau-
sative
topiti
means both
sink,
drown
(tr.)" (OCS u-topiti, -toplj,
Russ.
topit', u-,
za-topit^)
and,
closer to the
original meaning
of this
root,
heat,
melt"
(OCS ras-topiti icoepiiaveiv",
Russ.
topit', etc.). -tonti
is
usually
considered a
secondary
inchoative to
topiti,
or in
any
case
having adopted
its vocalism.
Although
this is
conceivable,
it is also
possible
that
-tonti
is old and that it reflects an
Indo-European
verbal
formation with
etymological *-<?-grade.
Outside Slavic the verb is attested in Lat.
tepe,
-re
be warm",
which could also be a Caland
system
denominative,15
and Indo-Iranian:
Vedic
present tpati
make hot; heat,
burn"16 and
tpyateltapyte heat,
become
warm; suffer,
perform austerity", 'passive'
aorist
tpi, perfect
14
Fraenkel LEW
227,
Vaillant
(1966: 251),
SSJ 1
1, 136, 148,
UV 3 17. On the other
hand,
I doubt the standard
equation
of Lith.
ksti,
Latv. kast
dig"
with OCS cesati and
Hitt. kiss-"11
comb"
to be correct.
Although conceivable,
the semantic
bridge
is not
very
easy
to cross. Lith. ksti
clearly belongs
to a
group
of
presents
that
regularly correspond
to verbs of the
/i/n-conjugation
in
Anatolian,
as we have seen in
3.
The
equation
of
Lith. ksti with Hitt. kiss-mi would be
fully anomalous,
while Hitt. kiss- and OCS
cesati, ceso
undoubtedly point
to an
Indo-European
athematic
present *ks-ti, *kes-nti.
15
Typical Caland-system
nominal formations of
*tep-
are
fairly
well attested: Ved.
tpu- hot";
Slavic
tephltoph warm";
Ved.
tpant-
=
Or.
t, pl.
tit
hot";
Ved.
tpas-
heat"
=
Lat.
tepor,
-ris
warmth",
etc. See Nussbaum
(1976: 23-24, 50, 52).
Originally
intransitive
heat,
burn
,
the transitive value
make
hot
(already
well
attested in the
RV)
is
probably secondary,
cf. Goto
(1987: 159-160).
Traces of *o-Grade Middle Root Aorists in Baltic and Slavic
303
tatpa,
causative
tpyati (AV),
YAv.
tafsa-
become hot",
causative
tpaiieiti
makes
hot". The intransitive character of this root is
beyond
doubt,
but it is not
entirely
clear whether we are
dealing
with a
presen-
tial root
be
hot" or with an aoristic one
become
hot".
Advocating
for
the later
(passive
aorists are almost
exclusively
derived from aoristic
roots in
Vedic),
I
propose
to relate
directly
the Vedic
passive
aorist
tpi
with Slavic
to(p)ne-, tope-,
both from an
Indo-European
middle
root aorist
*tp-e.
8.8.
Finally,
one should mention the
possibility
that a middle root
aorist with
*-6>-grade
stands at the
origin
of OCS
u-gasnti, -gasn,
aor.
-gase go
out,
be
extinguished" (as
shown
by
Tedesco 1948:
368-369,
gas-ne- replaces
and older
present *gas-je-,
cf.
prs. pple.
ne
gasst-
not
quenched").
The vocalism of
gasnti,
as
universally
assumed,
was
taken from the causative OCS
u-gasiti, -gas put
out,
quench".
The -a-
of
-gasiti
itself can be
explained
as a derivational neoablaut to roots
which were felt to have invariant *-0-vocalism
(<
*-o- or
*-a-)
in
Baltic,
Slavic and Germanic and thus be
compared
to
examples
such as OCS
paliti
burn (tr.)" (: polti
burn (intr.)"),
Lith.
rdyti show" (: rsti(s)
happen,
become;
appear,
be
found"),
ON
fera bring,
send"
(:
Goth.
faran go").17
OCS
gasiti
could also be
explained
as an inherited
Narten(-Klingenschmitt)
causative
*gws-ie/o-,]S
but no Narten
presents
of this root are
actually
attested and this
possibility
is
slightly
contra-
dicted
by
the accentuation of Russ.
gasif,
SCr.
gasiti (contrast
that of
Russian
plvit',
Serbo-Croatian
plviti
float",
whose derivation from
an
Indo-European
Narten"
iterative
*plu-ie/o-
finds direct
support
in
Gk. ttXcoco
swim"
and OE
flwan
flow",
a Narten
present *plu-l
*plu- being
secured as well
by
Toch. B
subj. plyewm
will
float" and
the acute intonation of Lith.
pluti, plujulplunu wash").
The
original
vocalism of
gasnti,
however,
is
usually
taken to be
*ges- (*zes-). Apart
from the
difficulty
of
explaining
a
hypothetical
*gos-
under the current theories of
Indo-European
verbal
ablaut,
the
Baltic material is often
quoted
as indirect evidence in favor of
*ges-.
Here we find
*-e-grade
both in the transitive Lith.
gesyti, gesa
(dialectal
also
gesi),
Latv.
dzst, dzsu
(and dzest, dzesu) put
out" and
in the intransitive Lith.
gsti, gst,
Latv.
dzist, dzlestu
go
out". Baltic
and Slavic would then fit into a
system
causative
*gs-(e)je/o-
: incho-
ative
*ges-ie/o- (later replaced by
nasal
presents),
Slavic
generalizing
17
Cf.
Stang(1942: 148).
Ot the
type ^suop-^e/o- put
to
sleep (Lat. sopire cause
to
sleep ,
UN
soja kill ),
established
by Klingenschmitt (1978).
304 Miguel
Villanueva Svensson
*gs-,
Baltic
*ges-.
While this seems
eminently possible,
the Baltic
inchoative could also be a
secondary
formation built to an earlier tran-
sitive
*-ie/o-present *ges-ia.
A verbal root
*gwes- tr.
put
out,
quench;
intr.
go
out,
die out" is
very
well attested in other branches
(Indo-Iranian, Greek, Armenian,
Gothic
quist
<
*gwes-ti- destruction"),
but with some
irregularities
in the first
consonant that make it even doubtful whether we are
dealing
with one
single
root or more than one.
In
Vedic,
where
jas-fdas-19
becomes
exhausted" is
exclusively
intran-
sitive,
we find an active
-jfl-present ni-jasya-tl disappear, get
lost",
{-)dsya-tl waste,
become exhausted"
pared
with a thematic aorist
dasat, jsamna-,
dsamna- in a recurrent
pattern.20
The
antiquity
of
the
-ya-present,
however,
is not assured. Jamison
(1983: 59) argues
for
an intransitive
-rya-present dasayanta
RV
xl, dasaye
TS xl
becomes
exhausted" as an
older,
synchronically
unmotivated
present
of this root.
Although usually
taken from
*gwes-,
the constant root
shape oijas-ldas-
could
point
to a root with
palatal *ges- (so Mayrhofer
EWAia I 581-
582).
The Greek
paradigm (prs, oewuui put
out,
quench",
-um
go
out",
fut.
oea(a)a>,
aor. tr.
eoeGOt, Geooai,
intr.
Gr|v, perf. eor|Ka)
is
clearly
based on the aorist tr.
oeo(a)ai,
intr.
cfjvai.
Greek stands
alone in
apparently representing *sgwes-,
with
mobile
s". This recon-
struction, however,
is
problematic
not
only
because of the isolation of
Greek,
but also because mobile s is
extremely
uncommon
among
roots
beginning
with a voiced
stop,
if it occurs at all. In
addition,
the intran-
sitive aorist
afjvai
is difficult to account for under this reconstruction.
In
spite
of its
general
modern
abandon,
I still consider a
plausible
solu-
tion that the initial cluster
o- originated
in the
passive"
aorist
(which
probably
has
replaced
an earlier middle root
aorist) *gws-e-
>
*or|-
>
arj- (with metathesis), a- being
later
adopted by
the active
sigmatic
aorist
*gwes-s-
> *dzes-s-
-

Gea()-.21
19
Das- is a dissimilated variant of
jas-,
cf. Hoffmann
apud Mayrhofer
EWAia 1711.
Clearly
innovated are the causatives
dasayati exhausts" (AV), jsayamasi we
make
disappear" (A VP)
and the associated
reduplicated
aorist
ajasas (also
A
VP),
cf.
Jamison
(1983: 141),
Kulikov
(2001: 401).
Also to be
explained
within Vedic is the
per-
fect
jajsa,
dadsa
(cf.
Kmmel 2000:
199, 236-7),
without of course it
being possible
to exclude the
possibility
that it is a formal and functional renewal of an
inherited,
stative
perfect.
21
Cf. Schmidt
(1968: 8651),
with former literature. Schmidt also mentions some ex-
amples
of a thematic middle aorist
(icaxeaexo, avveaexo, a7teaexo, awaTieaexo,
cf.
Schmidt,
loe. cit. for
references).
These
are, however,
of late attestation. I will not dis-
Traces of *oGrade Middle Root Aorists in Baltic and Slavic
305
Tocharian A/B ks-
come
to
extinction,
be
extinguished, go
out;
tr./act.
quench, extinguish"
shows the
following paradigm
in Tocharian
B:22 Class VIII
(*-se/o-) present
act.
kesm,
mid.
kestr,
Class I
(athe-
matic)
active
subjunctive
Inf.
kastsi,
Class III
(-e-)
middle
subjunctive
ksemar, ksentr,
Inf.
ksetsi,
Class III
(sigmatic) preterite
act.
kesasta,
mid. kessante. Tocharian B seems to have
generalized
kes- to all the
pa-
radigm,
but the Tocharian A
present 2sg.
kst
(< *g(w)es-se/o-)
shows
this to be an innovation.
Paradigmatically
kes-/ ks-
belongs
to a closed
set of verbs that in Tocharian A
oppose
an active
sigmatic preterite
to an
*-6>-grade
middle root
preterite
(naks :
nakt,
see below
10.2.).
Since
the middle
preterite
has
adopted
-s- from the active in Tocharian
B,
it is
possible
to reconstruct an
original
middle root aorist
*gwos-e
on the
basis of Toch. B
kessante,
pared
with an active
sigmatic
aorist
perhaps
already
in the
parent language.
If this is the
case,
we can
propose
the
following
evolution for the
putative Indo-European
aorist
system
active
*gws-s-/*gws-s- put
out",
middle
*gws-/*gw(e)s-
went
out". The
pattern
is
essentially preserved
in
Tocharian. In Greek the middle root aorist has
generalized
the zero
gra-
de and
adopted
the inflection of the
productive
intransitive
-r|-aorist (cf.
8JIIKTO
-
>
jiyri, etc.).
In Vedic the active
system
has been
entirely
lost,
while the middle root aorist has
generalized
the weak stem
*gwes-
and
has been thematized from the
3sg. *jas-a
-

*jas-a-t,
as in
-dat,
khyat
and other thematic aorists. A similar
development
has
perhaps
taken
place
in
Slavic,
if the middle aorist
generalized
the
*-6>-grade *gws-e
(also adopted by
the
present *gws-ie/o-).
Later,
an innovated causative
*gws-eie/o-
was created to the intransitive
*gws-ie/o-
:
*gws-e(-t),
which
finally adopted
the vocalism of the causative
gasiti
itself. In
Baltic the reverse has taken
place,
the inchoative
*gens-a- being
built to
the transitive
*ges-ia- (later replaced by gesyti
and still later
by gesinti),
which
probably
has inherited the active
system
of this root.23
Whatever the
pros
and cons of this
scenario,
it
goes
without
saying
that for Baltic and Slavic it is
just
a
possibility among
other. In
addition,
the uncertainties in the first consonant cast some doubts on the
validity
cuss here other forms of this root in Greek
(Hesychian evauV Gewuusv, aaov
aeaov, etc.), see L/V492ff, with literature.
22
Cf. Adams
(1999: 177).
The
present
Toch. B
kesm,
Toch. A kst is best taken as
Class VIII than as Class II
(as usually assumed),
cf. Jasanoff
(1998: 31453).
Li
Interestingly,
Maziulis PKEZ 1 328-31
interprets
OPruss.
gasto Stucke"
EV 238 as
a
participle *gas-t- *uzgesinta (zem)",
thus
providing
a
potential cognate
to the root
vocalism
*gas-
we have
postulated
for Slavic
gasnoti.
It
goes
without
saying,
this
interpretation
of OPruss.
gasto
is
just
one
among
several
possibilities. Smoczynski
(2000: 187-8)
advocates for a German
borrowing.
306 Miguel
Villanueva Svensson
of the standard
grouping,
in
spite
of its semantic coherence.
Thus,
lack
of forms with
**gas-
in Vedic and with **/cm- in Tocharian
may point
to
another root
*ges-,
without that
being entirely
sure.24
9. In the
preceding
sections we have studied ten verbs with *-o-vo-
calism in Baltic and Slavic.
They
all are intransitive inchoatives
('anti-
causative')
that exhibit the current
morphology
associated with this
functional domain. There is no reason to
suppose
that
they
have been
secondarily
formed within Baltic and Slavic.
Quite
the
opposite, they
bear all the
appearance
of inheritance from the
parent language.
If some
of them are doubtful or could have
acquired
their vocalism from another
source,
this doesn't hold true for the entire set. It is
important
to observe
that
they
all share a common formal feature: a root structure TET- or
(T)RET-, notoriously
reluctant to
adopt
zero
grade
in
Indo-European
and the
daughter languages.
It is also
important
to observe that incho-
ative verbs of this
type
with another root structure do not
present
*-6>-vocalism.25
Although rarely
discussed
together,
these verbs show obvious affini-
ties both formal and functional and can be studied
together
in search of
a
unitary explanation.
As we have
seen,
they
are
usually
taken to con-
tinue
Indo-European perfects,
cf.
specially Stang (1952, 1961,
966:
346ff)
and Vaillant
(1966: 77ff, 153, 251ff).
The
problems
linked to this
explanation,
however,
are almost
prohibitive.
The clearest
examples
of inherited
perfects
in Balto-Slavic are
clearly
Stative in
meaning
and
belong
to other
conjugation types (athematic
or
*-i-presents).
With the
exception
of some isolated
preterito-presents
(and
the
past participle)
the
Indo-European perfect
has
simply
been lost
in Balto-Slavic. If verbs like Lith.
tpti
become"
and OCS
pasti
fall"
continue old
perfects
we are
postulating
a functional shift from stative to
inchoative that is
by
no means
easy
to motivate and lacks secure
parallels.
At
best,
one could
imagine
that some
Indo-European perfects
were
preserved
with the
expected
stative value and
(presumably)
24
If we assume a root
*ges-
for Indo-Iranian and
Tocharian,
Hitt. kist-ari
be
extin-
guished,
die out" could
belong
here as
well,
as
frequently
assumed. In
any
case,
if
kist-ari is in fact a root
enlargement
of
*ges-
it must have formed a
different,
inde-
pendent paradigm
from
*ges-
in the
parent language.
Notice that the converse is not true. Some
obviously
inherited inchoative verbs to
TET- and
(T)RET-roots
show
*-e-grade:
OCS
ssti, sd,
aor. sdb
sit down", lesti,
Ig,
aor.
legh lie
down". The LIV derives two Baltic inchoative *--verbs to TERT-
roots from the
perfect:
Lith.
krsti,
krstu
(also krsiu) grow decrepit, grow
old"
(*fo?r-), tarpti, tarpst thrive, prosper" (*terp-).
I think
they
are both clear deno-
minatives,
cf.
karss,
-
decrepit,
old
aged", tarpa thrift", tarpus,
-i
thriving, ranky"
(so
for
tarpti
also
Smoczynski
2002:
48).
Traces of *-Grade Middle Root Aorists in Baltic and Slavic
307
athematic inflexion
(with
a
tendency
to become
*-i-presents),
and that
later new inchoative verbs were built to them
according
to
productive
patterns
of the
language.
This
possible
scenario is
implausible
for several reasons.
First,
the
putative
Stative
*-6>-grade
verbs
simply
do not exist.
Secondly,
there is
plenty
of evidence
showing
that the actual
(present) morphology
of
verbs like Lith.
tpti
or OCS
pasti
has
replaced
a
former,
from the
point
of view of Baltic and Slavic unmotivated
present
stem. First of all there
is the thematic
present
in OCS
pad fall",
but even here a transfer to
the
e-presents
is found in some
languages (Pol. padnie,
Cz.
padne).
An
earlier
*-7e/o-present
for OCS
gasn go
out" is still attested in ne
gasQst-
not
quenched".
In Baltic the aberrant dialectal
preterites
Lith.
tape
became"
and skt
sprang, hoped"
are
clearly compatible
with
earlier
presents *tap-ia,
*skat-ia,
while Gothic
frapjip,
also unmotivated
within
Germanic,
suggests
that
su-prata
understands"
has
replaced
an
earlier
*prat-ia
as well.
Finally,
the
imperfective
value of Slavic
to(p)nti
drown,
sink" and
moknti get
wet" also
argues
in favor of
their
being
old,
because
-ne-presents
are
productively perfective
in
Slavic. The
picture
that
emerges,
therefore,
is not that of a creation of
new
verbs,
but that of a
morphological
renewal of
primary
verbs with
obsolete
morphology.
The earliest
morphology
we can
gaze
at,
it is
important
to
emphasize,
is not that of an old
perfect
and cannot have
been created
recently.
Both
Stang
and Vaillant assume that the
presents tampa,
randa, pad,
ton
have been back formed to the
preterites tapo,
rado,
padt, toph.
While I
agree
that the
preterite
should be
given
a central role in the
prehistory
of these
verbs,
a direct derivation of Lith.
tapo,
rado or OCS
padh
from
Indo-European perfects *te-tp-e,
*re-rdh-e,
*pe-pd-e
would be
totally
in contradiction with what we know about the
pre-
history
of the Slavic aorist and the Baltic
preterite,
a
depository
of old
aorists and
imperfects
where the
perfect appears
not to have
played any
role at all
(relics
of the
Indo-European perfect
in the Slavic aorist or the
Baltic
preterite
are otherwise unknown to
me).
Later
Stang (1966: 345ff)
seems to have
changed
his
view,
assuming
that
*te-tp-e
or *re-rdh-e were first
preserved
as athematic
presents
*tap-ti,
*ras-ti. The
change
of
present
stem in
tampa,
randa would be
due to an earlier shift of function from stative to inchoative. While that
could be conceivable in a
given
case,
the shift of function is still
difficult to
accept
for the whole set. In
addition,
this
explanation
is in-
compatible
with the evidence in favor of older intransitive
308 Miguel
Villanueva Svensson
*-ie/o-presents
for
many
of the verbs under
consideration,
for that is
unexpected
within Balto-Slavic and
clearly
inherits an intransitive
conjugation pattern *-ie/o-present
: athematic aorist that
goes
back to
the
parent language.
In
brief,
the recourse to the
perfect
is linked with too
many
difficulties
to be
convincing.
The main reason for the relative success of this
theory
is,
I
believe,
the
apparent
absence of serious alternatives in the Indo-
European
verbal
system
as
usually
reconstructed. Since Lith.
tpti
or
OCS
pasti
are intransitive and show
*-6>-grade,
and since the
perfect
is
the
only category
believed to have shown these features in the common
language,
there seems to be no other
possible
choice. But this choice is
quite unsatisfactory
both
formally
and
functionally.
In
addition,
the
restriction of *-o-vocalism
among
inchoatives to TET- and
(T)RET-
roots is left unaccounted for.26
Alternatively,
since
starting
from the
perfect
is not a
satisfactory
solution,
one could
give
more or less ad hoc individual solutions for
every single
item,
such as Machek and
Klingenschmitt'
s cross of
*pl-
and
*ped-
in Slavic
pad-e-
or the influence of old causatives like
*wdh-ie/o-, *top-ie/o-
in the vocalism of their inchoatives. That
would be
perfectly possible,
but the recourse to an
analogical
solution
always implies
that a more
systematic
one is not
possible.
As I have
tried to
show,
there is a
systematic
correlation between root
vocalism,
root structure and
meaning
in the verbs we are
studying,
a
systematic
correlation that makes a
systematic explanation
desirable.
As we have
seen,
there is evidence
indicating
that the
morphology
of
the verbs under consideration is an
innovation,
at least in the
present (in
Baltic hence also in the
preterite,
which is
dependent
from the
present
stem in this
branch), reflecting
the
productivity
of nasal infixai and -sta-
presents
in Baltic and of
-ne-presents
in Slavic as a marker of inchoative
verbs. As for the
*-o-grade,
it cannot have
originated
in the
present.
As I
am
arguing
in this
article,
verbs like Lith.
tpti,
OCS
pasti
continue
Indo-European
middle root aorists
*top-e, *pod-e
as the oldest
form,
the
present being
back formed from the aorist
according
to a
productive
pattern
for intransitives in late
Indo-European
and sooner or later
adopting
the vocalism of the aorist because of a root structure that was
reluctant to show the
expected
zero
grade.
26
On the other
hand,
that there exists a
systematic
correlation between a
given
root
structure and inchoative
*-o-grade
verbs
has,
to
my knowledge,
never been observed
before.
Traces of *o-Grade Middle Root Aorists in Baltic and Slavic
309
10. Powerful as internal
arguments might
be,
had we but a handful of
isolated verbs in Baltic and Slavic it would be
clearly
too rash to
postu-
late a new
apophonic type
for the
parent language. Fortunately,
evidence
for both
*-o-grade (alternating
with
*-0-grade
in the
plural
and
dual)
and a 3
sg.
*-e
(pared
with a 3
pl.
*-re,
*-re vel.
sim.)
in the Indo-
European
middle root aorists is
by
no means limited to these families.
That dentalless middle
endings
were once also
present
in the middle
root aorist is a
theory
that
goes
back at least to
Wackernagel's (1926)
classical
explanation
of Vedic dat
took"
from an earlier middle aorist
*
d(H)-a.
It was extended as a
general
scenario for the creation of
active thematic aorists
by
Watkins
(1969).
The
theory
that the middle
root aorist
(or
a
subtype
of middle root
aorist) displayed
a
perfect-like
ablaut *-tf-/*-0- in the
parent language
is much more
recent,
mainly
due
to Jasanoff
(1992,
and other
publications).
Jasanoff builds his
theory
on
the evidence of three families: Indo-Iranian
(the passive aorist),
Tocha-
rian
(Class
V
subjunctives;
Toch. A nakt
perish", pakt ripen, cook")
and Anatolian
(some /z/zZ-conjugation verbs).
In what follows I shall
briefly
comment on these data.27
10.1. The Indo-Iranian
'passive'28
aorist is formed with a 3
sg.
-/ ad-
ded to the verbal
root,
originally
with
*-o-grade
as evidenced
by Brug-
mann's Law: Ved. bodhi
awoke", jani
was born",
kri
was
made",
GAv. srauu
was heard",
as if from
*-bhoudh-i,
*-gonh-i,
*-kwor-i,
^dou-i. Because of its
paradigmatic
isolation and
morpholo-
gical oddity,
the
passive
aorist has been
generally
dismissed in
general
treatments of the
Indo-European
verb. It is sometimes
thought
to be of
nominal
origin,29
but the evidence of neuter *-/-stem nouns with
*-6>-grade
that would serve as the basis is
scanty
to
say
the less and it is
hard to
imagine
how such a formation could have found its
way
into the
aorist
system
of such an archaic branch of
Indo-European.
Indeed,
several facts
speak
in favor of its
antiquity.
First of
all,
it was discovered
in the sixties that
pdi,
bodhi, yoji,
darsi are
paradigmatically
27
At
present my (still tentative)
views on this
topic
differ in some
important respects
from those of
Jasanoff,
but this doesn't touch the central
point
that if not all the
category,
at least a
subgroup
of
Indo-European
middle root aorists
(or
of intransitive
'^-conjugation'
aorists,
as
per Jasanoff)
was characterized
by
dentalless
endings (3
sg.
*-e. 3
pl.
*-re and/or
*-ere)
and an ablaut
pattern *-o-/*-0-.
28
The term
'passive'
is a misnomer. Passive aorists contrast in function with the
regu-
lar
middle,
but we find both
simple
intransitives
('anticausatives':
bodhi
awoke" jani
was born", pdi fell down")
as well as
passives {kri was made",
darsi
was
seen", srvT,
OAv. srauu
was heard").
We can assume that the
passive
value has
evolved from the intransitive
(anticausative).
29
Cf. Kmmel
(1996: 14ff)
for a modern defense of this view.
310 Miguel
Villanueva S vensson
associated with a 3rd
plural
-raml-ran
(injunctive -anta)
with zero
grade
of the root
(padran, budhran,
yujran,
dfsran),30
a fact that almost
automatically points
to an inherited middle
paradigm
of the most archaic
type (cf. present
3
sg. sye,
duh : 3
pl.
sre, duhr).
This is confirmed
by
the
obviously
inherited nature of
deponents
like
pdi,
bodhi or
jani
and
by
the likewise
obviously
inherited
pattern
of
conjugation
that
entails a middle
-ya-present
and an
(active) perfect (pdyate
:
pdi
:
papada; jyate
:
jani
:
jaj).
It is therefore safe to
attempt
a direct
derivation of the Indo-Iranian
passive
aorist from the
Indo-European
middle root aorist.
The 3
sg.
*-/
probably
arose
through
a
proportional analogy
with the 1
sg.
*-/,
as
clearly
seen
by
Insler
(1968: 324ff).
The model was
provided
by
the
perfect
and
passive-intransitive presents
with zero
grade
of the
type
still
preserved
in GAv. sruii
(: passive
aorist
srauu)
and Ved. cit
(: aceti),31
that no doubt had a
larger presence
in earlier
stages
of Indo-
Iranian:
prs, lsg *-*(/)
:
3sg *-#(/)
=
perf. lsg
*-* :
3sg
*-z
=
aor.
lsg
*-/ :
X,
X
=
*-/. The
*-o-grade
of the 3rd
singular,
on the other
hand,
cannot be
reasonably explained
as an Indo-Iranian innovation. If the
Indo-Iranian
passive
aorist is
inherited,
as internal evidence
clearly
suggests,
we can't avoid
positing ablauting
middle aorists
*
pd-el
*Ped-r,
*bhudh-el*bhudh-r for the common
language.
Outside
Indo-Iranian,
Tocharian
provides
both direct and indirect evi-
dence in favor of an
ablauting
middle root aorist *louk-l*luk-.
10.2. Tocharian A shows a small
group
of
exclusively
intransitive
middle athematic
preterites
with
*-#-grade pared
with
active,
transitive
sigmatic
aorists with the
expected *--grade. Paradigmatically they
occur besides Class VIII
presents,
Class I active
subjunctives
and Class
III middle
subjunctives.
In Tocharian B the middle
preterite
has taken
-s- from the
active,
but
preserving
the old vocalism: Toch. A
tamt,
Toch. B temtsate
was
born"
(act.
Toch. B tsemtsa
begot"),
Toch. A
tsakt,
Toch. B 1
sg.
tseksamai
burned" (act.
Toch. B 3
pl.
tsekr
burned (tr.)"),
Toch. A
nakt,
Toch. B neksate
perished" (act.
Toch. A
naks,
Toch. B neksa
destroyed"),
Toch. A
lyokt,
Toch. B laukste
shined" (act.
Toch. A
lyoks,
Toch. B
lyauksa light up"),
Toch. A
pakt ripened,
cooked",
as well as Toch. B 1
sg.
nemtsamai
bowed"
(act.
Toch. B 3
pl.
nemar
bent")
and 3
pl.
kessante
was
extinguished"
(act.
2
sg.
kesasta
extinguished"),
where the
preterite
is not attested in
Tocharian A but
belong
to the same
type
of
paradigm.
The
opposition
of
30
Cf. Narten
(1964: 24ff),
Insler
(1968: 314ff).
31
Cf. Kmmel
(1996: 13, 38, 152ff).
Traces of *oGrade Middle Root Aorists in Baltic and Slavic
3 1 1
an
active,
transitive
sigmatic
aorist and an intransitive
(middle)
root
aorist recurs in Greek and
probably
inherits an
Indo-European pattern
of
conjugation.
The dental
endings
of the Tocharian A middle aorists can
easily
have
replaced
earlier dentalless
endings.
As for the
*-ograde,
I
think it is best taken at face
value,
reflecting
a real
*-o-grade genera-
lized to all the
paradigm.32
10.3. Indirect evidence comes from the
subjunctive.
Class V
subjunc-
tives are characterized
by
a suffix
*--,
probably adopted
from the Class
I
preterites
with which
they
correlate,
and
frequently display
ablaut
(ac-
tive
singular
Toch. B
-ai-, -au-, --,
Toch. A
-e-, -o-,
-a- : active
plural
and middle
-/-,
-u- or
--).
Class V
subjunctives
are
systematically
asso-
ciated with
deponent presents
of Class III and IV as well as with nasal
presents.
Since the Tocharian
subjunctive
is,
historically speaking,
a dis-
placed
indicative,
it seems safe to search for an inherited indicative as
the source of Class V
subjunctives.
The
Indo-European perfect
has of
course been
frequently
invoked,
but Class V
subjunctives consistently
lack the
expected reduplication (well preserved
in the
past participle:
Toch. B
keklyausu,
Toch. A
kaklyusu heard")
and show no
special
preference
for a stati ve
meaning.
A clue is
provided by
the
systematic
correlation of Class V
subjunctives
and Class III and IV
deponent presents
with zero
grade
of
the root
(wik- disappear": prs.
Toch. B
wiketr,
Toch. A wikatr :
subj.
Toch. A
wekas,
Toch. B
wikatr).
We have
already
encountered
this
pattern
in Indo-Iranian
(present
Ved.
cit,
GAv. sruii :
passive
aorist Ved.
aceti,
GAv.
sruu)
and we will find
it,
again
in a trans-
formed
fashion,
in Anatolian
(see
below footnote
34).
It is therefore
reasonable to derive the Tocharian Class V
subjunctive
from Indo-
European
middle root aorists with *-o-/*-0- ablaut
and,
probably,
dentalless middle
endings.
10.4. When
studying
the lexical
composition
of the middle voice in
Anatolian,
I was
surprised by
a curious
and,
to
my knowledge,
still
unnoticed fact. Middle verbs
correlating
with
Indo-European
middle
aorists are
extremely
few and in most cases
arguably secondary.
Hitt.
ar-ta
stand" (:
Ved.
arta,
Gk.
copio), luk-ta,
lukka-tta
grow bright,
dawn"
(:
Ved.
roci,
Toch. A
lyokt), par(a)ktaru
KUB 33.68 ii 2
let
him rise"
(:
Arm.
barjaw,
Toch. B
opt. prkoytr)
are
certainly
old,
but
32
Pace
Ringe (1990: 215).
312 Miguel
Villanueva Svensson
neither for arta nor for lukta is accent in the
endings possible.33 Apart
from
that,
middle forms
corresponding
to aoristic roots are found in
some old intransitive active aorists that have
adopted
middle inflection
within the
history
of Hittite
(mer-lmar-mi
-

mar-tari,
mer-tari
disappear",
neku-mi
-

neku-tta,
neku-ttat
become
twilight", maybe
supp-mi fall
asleep"
-

suppatta, suptri, suppari)
or are
oppositional
middles that could have been formed or reformed from the active at
any
moment and for the most
part
are of late attestation
(rr-hhl wash"
:
arra-ttat, karp-mi lift"
:
kar(a)p-tari, pp-/app-mi
take"
:
appa-ttat,
da-hhl
take"
:
da-ttari, da-ttat).
The
scarcity
of
Indo-European
middle root aorists is rather
surprising
in a branch like
Anatolian,
notorious for its
preservation
of Indo-Euro-
pean
root
presents
and aorists.
Conversely,
in the
/z/zZ-conjugation
we
find a
fairly good
number of secure or
probable
aoristic
roots,
mostly
in-
transitive or with a
meaning compatible
with those of the middle voice:
r-hhl
arrive" (:
Ved. rat
reached, arrived"),
ht-hhl
become
dry" (:
Gk.
aojiai
become
dry"), sarap-hhl sip" (:
Arm. arbi
drank"),
dk-/
takk-hhl
resemble" (:
Gk. icco
took",
Arm. tesi
saw"), ari-/ariy-hhl
rise" (:
Arm. ari
rise
up!"),
k-/akk-hhl
die", d-hhl,
CLuv.
la-,
HLuv.
tai,
lai
take" (:
Ved. dat
took").
Verbs like these contrast in function
with the
Mi-conjugation
root verbs
corresponding
to
presential
roots,
that are
usually
transitive or in
any
case show no
special preponderance
of
meanings
associated to the middle voice
(the type
Hitt. malli
grind",
paddai dig", etc.).34
Both facts find an
easy explanation
if we assume that the middle
aorists inherited
by
Anatolian were characterized
by
*-o-/*-0- ablaut
and dentalless
endings
3
sg.
*-e,
3
pl.
*-re,
*-re
(yel. sim.). Formally
they
contrasted with the middle
presents,
which
regularly
lacked inner
paradigmatic
ablaut and had a 3
sg. *-o(r)
or
*-to(r)
and a 3
pl.
*-(e)nto(r).
Since the formal characteristics of the middle aorists were
the same as those of the active
/i/n-conjugation, they
were
subsequently
33
According
to the
principles
of
appearance
of -ri in the
present
middle
endings
of
Hittite established
by
Yoshida
(1990), *Hr-t,
Huk-t would have
given
**ar-tri,
**lukk(a)-ttri.
A small
group
or
-ftm-conjugation
verbs
correlating
with aoristic roots are
transitive. I assume that their transitive value is due to
polarization
vis--vis old
presents
with zero
grade
of the
type
Ved.
cit,
GAv. sruii and the Tocharian Class III and IV
presents.
So,
for
instance,
lak-hhl
bend" (:
Gk.
eKxo,
OCS -leze
lay down")
:
lagri
lie,
be laid"
(:
OCS
lezit-b, lezati,
Fai. <lecet>
lies"),
wrai
kindles" (:
Lith. vir
boiled")
: urani
burn" (:
OCS
Vbrith,
vbreti
cook"),
harrai
crush" (:
Toch. B
ara,
Toch. A r
cease,
come to one
end")
: *harhri
-

harratta(ri) get spoiled, go
to
waste"
(:
Toch. B orotr
cease,
come to an
end").
Traces of *o-Grade Middle Root Aorists in Baltic and Slavic
313
reinterpreted
as
Wn'-conjugation
verbs.35 A fuller treatment of the Anato-
lian data will be
presented
elsewhere.
10.5. There is thus solid evidence for the reconstruction of
ablauting
middle root aorists in
Indo-European.
Indo-Iranian and Anatolian clear-
ly point
to
dentalless,
perfect-like endings
3
sg.
*-e,
3
pl.
*-re,
*-re
(vel. sim.).36
The
paradigm
of a middle root aorist like Heuk-
shine",
then,
would run as follows:
1
sg.
*luk-h2e
1
pl.
*luk-mdhh2
2
sg.
*luk-th,2e
2
pl.
*luk-dhu
3
sg.
Huk-e 3
pl.
Huk-r or luk-re
The almost universal
tendency
to
generalize
the zero
grade
is
easy
to
understand as a formal subordination to the active aorist.
Further evidence for a 3
sg.
*-e in the middle root aorist comes from
the active thematic
aorist,
if
originated
in a
post-Indo-European
redun-
dant addition of the 3
sg.
active *-t to an
already
obsolete 3
sg.
middle
*-e. As it is well
known,
this formation shows a marked
preference
for
ac-tive
morphology, specially
in
Vedic,
even if it
frequently
shows
charac-teristically
middle semantics or occurs in verbs of
predominant
or ex-clusive middle
morphology.37
I will not
go
here into a detailed
defense of this
theory,
see Watkins
(1969: lOOff) and,
specially,
Hollifield
(1977: 57ff).
Since thematic aorists take zero
grade
of the
root,
it follows that the
general tendency
to introduce zero
grade
in the middle root aorist must
have
preceded
the
tendency
to
replace
the 3
sg.
*-e
by
the more recent
and
productive
*-to. Traces of the
old,
ablauting
middle root
aorist,
in
point
of
fact,
were allowed to survive into the historical
period only
in a
transformed and
specialized
fashion
(Indo-Iranian passive
aorists,
Tocharian Class V
subjunctives,
some Anatolian
^/-conjugation verbs)
or under
very specific
conditions
(the
Tocharian
nakt-type).
35
Of
course,
inasmuch as other factors were not at
play.
So,
for
instance,
*luk-e >
-
>
lukta
preserved
its middle voice because it was
morphological
subordinated to the active
lukke-mi
kindle"
< Houk-ie-ti.
36
Although
authorized adherence to the new reconstruction has been
expressed by
some
authors,
the communis
opinio
still holds the middle root aorists to have
presented
regularly
zero
grade
of the root in
Indo-European.
Well founded as it
might seem,
however,
this view leaves a
growing
number of data unaccounted for.
E.g.
Ved. dat
took" (:

datte), huvat invoked" (: huv; hvate), khyat
looked" (: caste),
Gk.
expacpov grew up" (: ipcpoum), exparcov turned" (: xpercoum),
r|pi7TOv fell
down"
(: percoum),
etc.
314 Miguel
Villanueva Svensson
It
goes
without
saying,
there is much that still needs to be worked out
in more detail about the reconstruction of the
Indo-European
middle
aorist as outlined in this section. The
general patterns
of evolution with-
in each
separate
branch have been more
complex
than
usually
assumed,
entailing
several
layers
of
analogical changes, categorial splits
and mor-
phological
renewal. Whether the
type
*luk-el*luk-r was the
general
pattern
of
conjugation
for middle aorists in the
parent language
or
just
a
subtype
of
conjugation (for instance,
opposed
to self-benefactive aorists
with zero
grade)
is a
question
that future research will
hopefully
aid to
clarify.
The central
point
that
perfect
like ablaut and
endings
were once
present
in the
Indo-European
middle root
aorist,
in
any
case,
seems to be
founded on safe
ground.38
11. After this rather
lengthy
excursus we are now in a
position
to
return to the Balto-Slavic material. As we have
argued,
some Slavic the-
matic aorists as OCS
pade fell"
or
tope sank"
and some Baltic
prete-
rites as Lith. rado
found"
or
su-prto understood"
are
likely
to con-
tinue
Indo-European
middle root aorists with
*--grade
in the
singular
and a 3
sg. ending
*-e
(*pd-e, *tp-e, *rdh-e, *prt-e).
The
preser-
vation and
spread
of the
*-6>-grade
to the
plural
and later to the whole
paradigm,
both facts
exceptional
in Baltic and
Slavic,
have been moti-
vated
by
their root structure TET- or
(T)RET-,
which was reluctant to
adopt
zero
grade.
The
present
of these verbs is in almost
every single
instance of clear innovative nature and in a number of cases can be ar-
gued
to have
replaced
earlier intransitive
*-^/-presents.
The middle
aorist as the source of the
*-ograde
of these verbs is in a sense the
default
hypothesis,
since a
perfect
fits bad both
formally
and func-
tionally
and
*-/f>/o-presents certainly
didn't show *--vocalism in the
parent language.
This
theory
has
only
become
possible
after extensive
revision of the
morphology
of the
Indo-European
middle root aorist in
recent
years.
The
comparative
value of the
examples
we have studied is
unequal.
OCS
pade fell", tope
sank"
and
-gase
went out,
was
extinguished"
can be
equated
with
*-o-grade
middle aorists elsewhere in Indo-Euro-
pean (Ved. pdi, tpi,
Toch. B
kessante).
Lith. sktolskt
spring,
hop"
and
su-prto understood"
show
cognates
that at least
guaranty
the
38
1 will not address here the
question
of
why
middle root aorist
displayed
a different
morphology
from that of middle
presents
or how the
prehistorical relationship
between
the
middle,
the
perfect
and the
"'-/^-conjugation' (=
Anatolian
/i/w-conjugation)
is to
be understood. Whatever the answer to these
questions might be,
the reconstruction of
*-o-/*-0-ablaut and dentalless
endings
3
sg. *-e,
3
pl. *-re,
*-re for the middle aorist is
based on real
data,
not on theoretical
expectations.
Traces of %-Grade Middle Root Aorists in Baltic and Slavic
3 1 5
presence
of a verb in the
parent language (Lat.
scatrelscatere
gush
(forth)",
Goth,
franjan understand"). Although
secure
cognates
are re-
stricted to
Balto-Slavic,
the same is
probably
true for Lith.
tpoltp
became"
or rado
found",
but it is
merely
a
guess
that OCS kose
s
touched",
Lith. kkti
set out, start,
go"
or Slavic
mokngti get
wet"
should be
explained
in that
way
and not otherwise. On the other
hand,
I
do not claim to have exhausted the evidence. It is
possible
that more
potential examples
will come to
light
in the future.
Our
proposal
for the
type
OCS
pasti
fall",
Lith.
tpti become"
gives
their aorists
pade, tapo
a central role in the
prehistory
of these
verbs,
their
present (both
the older *-ie/o- or thematic
presents
and the more
recent inchoative Slavic
^-presents
and Baltic nasal infixai and
sta
-presents) being originally
of a
secondary,
derived nature. The same
must hold true for Baltic and Slavic inchoative verbs as a class. An
indeterminable number of
Indo-European
middle root aorists were the-
matized and came to be
pared
with some characteristic
type
of
presents.
Nasal
presents
would
eventually
win its
place
as the correlate of the-
matic aorists in a new and
productive
class of inchoative verbs in
Baltic,
Slavic and Germanic. The
explanatory power
and the details of this
scenario remain a task for the
future,
but it cannot be
argued
at
length
here. In
addition,
the
synchronie
verbal
systems
of these branches as we
know them
deprives
us of most of the evidence.
Thus,
it is a reasonable
assumption
that thematic aorists were once
present
in Baltic and
Germanic in a distribution
broadly
similar to that of
Slavic,
but this
is,
strictly speaking, impossible
to
prove.
Within
Slavic,
the
theory
accords well with the functional domain and
paradigmatic properties
of thematic aorists
(almost
exclusive restriction
to Leskien's Class
II).
A
significant
number of Slavic thematic aorists
can be
equated
with middle root aorists or formations that
replace
them
in other
Indo-European languages.
In addition to OCS
pade (:
Ved.
pdi), tope (:
Ved.
tp)
and
-gase (:
Toch. B
kessante)
one can
mention
sesti, sd,
sdh
sit
down"
(:
Ved.
sdi, sadat,
Gk.
eeio),
lesti,
Ig, legt
lie
down"
(:
Hitt. lak-hhi
bend",39
Gk.
excio),
both
significantly pared
with an
infixai
nasal
present, vbz-btntirbhn,
-bbdh
awake" (:
Ved. bodhi
awoke",
Gk.
87T9|lIT|v learned"),
drbznti, drbzn,
drbzt dare" (:
Ved. dhrsn-
daring"), pri-lbnti,
-Ibn, -Ibp-b stick" (:
Toch. B
subj. liptr
remain,
be left
over",
Ved.
alipsata), pro-mhknti, -mhkn,
-nvbkb
s push,
move"
(:
Ved. moci
became free"), vyknti, vykn, vykh
learn" (:
Arm. owsaw
learnt"),
39
See
above,
footnote 34.
316 Miguel
Villanueva Svensson
*svbt-n-ti dawn"
in ORuss.
svbnuti,
SCr. svnuti
(:
Ved. svitn-
bright").
More
examples
could be adduced for which an
Indo-European
middle
aorist is
conceivable,
but
given
the limited
array
of secure
etymologies
and the
productivity
of Class II
presents
in Slavic the
comparative
evi-
dence cannot be overrated. Preference should be
given
to internal
argu-
ments as those we have tried to offer for the small set of inchoative
*-o-grade
verbs
exemplified by
OCS
pasti
and Lith.
tpti.
As for
these,
it has been
possible
to
argue
that
starting
from
Indo-European ablauting
middle aorists
*pd-e/*ped-r, *tp-el*tep-r
as the ultimate
origin pro-
vides a reasonable solution of their formal and functional
properties.
Albeit
modest,
the
type
OCS
pasti,
Lith.
tpti
adds a new
piece
of evi-
dence to the reconstruction of
Indo-European
middle aorists with
per-
fect-like ablaut and
endings.
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Vilnius
University
Vytautas Magnus University
Miguel
Villanueva Svensson
Vileisio 14-35
LT- 10306 Vilnius
Lithuania
e-mail:
miguelvillanueva
@
yahoo,
com

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