Unidirectionality in the development of Indo-European preverbs

Thórhallur Eythórsson

University of Manchester (tolli@man.ac.uk)

In archaic Indo-European (IE) languages like Vedic Sanskrit, Homeric Greek and Hittite a particle (preverb) can constitute a phrasal predicate together with a verb. The particle can immediately precede the verb (whence 'pre'verb), but can also occur separated from the verb, either to its left (typically in clause-initial position) or to its right, irrespective of clause-type. The difference in word order aside, these particles essentially correspond to the separable verbal particles (prefixes) in Germanic. In the history of IE languages a strong tendency manifests itself to eliminate the preverbs, in favour of a "univerbation" of the verb and preverb into a prefixed verb; in some of the languages, moreover, the verbal prefixes were eventually lost. These changes instantiate a classic case of grammaticalisation, exhibiting a predominantly unidirectional development (with existing counterexamples being isolated "type" occurrences). The univerbation is evident already in post-Rigvedic Sanskrit, post-Homeric Greek and Classical Latin, as well as in modern Russian and Latvian, for instance. These languages all have inseparable verbal prefixes which are the result of an incorporation of an original preverb into the verb. Concomitant with this incorporation is the loss of stress of the particle, which thus becomes dependent on verb. In German and Dutch, while some particles were reanalysed as inseparable prefixes, others remain separable. I argue the IE preverbs involve a "periphrastic exponence", in which the semantic information is encoded lexically but realised syntactically (Ackerman & LeSourd 1997, Ackerman & Webelhuth 1998). Thus, the motivation for the univerbation would seem to be to resolve the tension between the syntax and the semantics of the analytic word formation.

A clue to the nature of the incorporation is given by the existence of "near-inseparable" prefixes, which are attested in early Germanic (Gothic), Celtic (Old Irish) and Baltic (Old Lithuanian). This type of prefix represents an intermediate stage between the archaic IE preverbs and the inseparable prefixes. In Gothic, Old Irish and Old Lithuanian second position (Wackernagel's Law) clitics attach to a finite verb which is fronted to initial position in clauses not introduced by a lexical complementiser. In the case of prefixed verbs the clitics occur "infixed" between the prefix and the finite verb (Prefix-clitic-Verb):

(1) frah ina [ga-u-hva-sehvi (Gothic)

In clauses containing a lexical complementiser, on the other hand, the clitics generally occur to the left of the verb (Comp-clitic-Prefix-Verb). A possible analysis of the mismatch exhibited by the verbs with "near-inseparable" prefixes and the clitics is that the compounding occurs syntactically. Crucial for the assumption that the prefix forms a complex syntactic entity together with the verb is the aspectual function of many of the prefixes in question. It may be assumed that these elements are the lexical content of a functional projection Aspect Phrase (AspP). By successive head raising the verb moves from its base position in VP up to the head of AspP, where the aspectual prefix is base generated. Then the prefix-head complex moves further up to C, where the clitics adjoin to the leftmost lexical head (Asp). Thus, the prefix-verb complex moves together to ahigher functional head position (C), where the clitics may attach to the prefix as the leftmost head. At later stages the "near-inseparable" prefix base-generated in Asp was reanalysed as a verbal prefix, added to the verb in the lexicon. As mentioned above, as the "final stage" in the development the inseparable prefix may be lost ("zero"). This happened in early North Germanic, for example, whereas a more complicated development has taken place in the history of English, where some prefixes have been lost but others survive.

In sum, in this paper I will give an outline of the diachronic development of phrasal predicates via verbal prefixes to zero in Indo-European languages.