{"title":"Between syntax and semantics","authors":"Dan Petit","doi":"10.1515/if-2018-0008","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The East Baltic conditional mood (e.g. Old Lithuanian duotumbiau‘I would give’) must certainly represent a recent innovation of this branch of Indo- European, but its origin raises considerable problems. At first glance it derives from a periphrasis combining the inherited supine (e.g. *duotun‘giving’) and an auxiliary *bi-of obscure origin, probably an optative or an indicative preterite of *bhuH-‘to be’. Semantically, this periphrastic structure is difficult to account for, especially if one recalls that the supine is limited to the expression of finality after verbs of motion, which cannot have been the case with an auxiliary ‘to be’. In addition, the absence of an auxiliary in the third person in Lithuanian (e.g. duotų ‘he/they would give’) and throughout the paradigm in Latvian (e.g. es, tu, viņšduotu‘I, you, he would give’, etc.) requires an explanation. In this paper I try to give a full account of the prehistory of the East Baltic conditional mood, relying on Stang’s analysis but with a more precise scenario to explain some syntactic and semantic aspects which have not yet received the attention they deserve.","PeriodicalId":13385,"journal":{"name":"Indogermanische Forschungen","volume":"123 1","pages":"211 - 246"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1000,"publicationDate":"2018-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/if-2018-0008","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Indogermanische Forschungen","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1515/if-2018-0008","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract The East Baltic conditional mood (e.g. Old Lithuanian duotumbiau‘I would give’) must certainly represent a recent innovation of this branch of Indo- European, but its origin raises considerable problems. At first glance it derives from a periphrasis combining the inherited supine (e.g. *duotun‘giving’) and an auxiliary *bi-of obscure origin, probably an optative or an indicative preterite of *bhuH-‘to be’. Semantically, this periphrastic structure is difficult to account for, especially if one recalls that the supine is limited to the expression of finality after verbs of motion, which cannot have been the case with an auxiliary ‘to be’. In addition, the absence of an auxiliary in the third person in Lithuanian (e.g. duotų ‘he/they would give’) and throughout the paradigm in Latvian (e.g. es, tu, viņšduotu‘I, you, he would give’, etc.) requires an explanation. In this paper I try to give a full account of the prehistory of the East Baltic conditional mood, relying on Stang’s analysis but with a more precise scenario to explain some syntactic and semantic aspects which have not yet received the attention they deserve.
摘要东波罗的海条件语气(如古立陶宛语duotumbiau“I would give”)肯定代表了印欧语系这一分支的最新创新,但其起源引发了相当大的问题。乍一看,它源于一个外周词,结合了遗传的仰卧位(例如“duotun'giving”)和一个来源不明的辅助*bi,可能是*bhuH-“to be”的选择性或指示性前置词。从语义上讲,这种边缘结构很难解释,尤其是当人们回忆起仰卧仅限于运动动词后的终结性表达时,而辅助词“to be”不可能是这种情况。此外,立陶宛语中第三人称中没有助词(例如“他/他们会给予”),拉脱维亚语中整个范式中也没有助词。在本文中,我试图以斯坦格的分析为基础,用一个更精确的场景来解释一些尚未得到应有关注的句法和语义方面,从而全面了解东波罗的海条件语气的史前史。
期刊介绍:
Indogermanische Forschungen publishes contributions (essays and reviews) mainly in the areas of historical-comparative linguistics, historical linguistics, typology and characteristics of the languages of the Indogermanic language family. Essays on general linguistics and non-Indogermanic languages are also featured, provided that they coincide with the main focus of the journal with respect to methods and language history.