Article published in:
Proto-Indo-European Syntax and its Development
Edited by Leonid Kulikov and Nikolaos Lavidas
[Benjamins Current Topics 75] 2015
► pp. 7–27

Reconstructing Proto-Indo-European categories

The reflexive and the middle in Hittite and in the Proto-language

| University of Verona & University of Würzburg
Starting from the analysis of constructions employed to express the category of reflexive in Hittite, encoded both by the verbal ending set of the middle and by the pronominal marker -za with both active and middle verbal forms, we present a typological parallelism with the Baltic languages that has consistently developed, from a pronominal, a verbal strategy to mark reflexivity. It is also shown that a development regarding the ways of encoding reflexivity involve other Indo-European languages as well. The Anatolian languages attest the reflexes of the original set of endings referring to the semantic categories of Reflexive, Middle and “Resultative”, while the other Indo-European languages attest an innovated “mixed morphology” for the category of Middle and Reflexive as opposed to the proper endings of the historical perfect. Within such a theoretical framework, the development of alternative strategies, using pronominal devices or particles, aims to disambiguate a wide polysemous ending set. A ‘Wackernagel’ (2P) particle in Hittite, namely -z, is particularly active in disambiguating reflexivity. Lithuanian -si, an original pronoun that developed at first into a 2P particle and subsequently into a verbal suffix, extends its functional field and takes over the place of the original middle, as in other Baltic and Slavonic languages.
Published online: 16 July 2015
https://doi.org/10.1075/bct.75.02cot
References
Archi, Alfonso
1993 Kamrušepa and the Sheep of the Sun-God. Orientalia Nova Series 62.404–409.Google Scholar
Benedetti, Benedetto
1981 Sul simbolismo del “legare” e del “tessere”. Studi e Ricerche 1.7–18.Google Scholar
Benedetti, Marina
2005 Dispersioni formali del medio indoeuropeo. Acquisizione e mutamento di categorie linguistiche. Atti del Convegno della Società Italiana di Glottologia (Perugia, 23–25 ottobre 2003) ed. by Lidia Costamagna & Stefania Giannini, 95–119. Roma: Il Calamo.Google Scholar
Boley, Jacqueline
1993 The Hittite Particle -z/-za. (= Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft, 79.) Innsbruck: Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft.Google Scholar
CHD. Güterbock, et al.
eds. 1980 2005
Clackson, James
2007 Indo-European Linguistics: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Cotticelli Kurras, Paola & Alfredo Rizza
2011 Die hethitische Partikel -z(a) im Licht neuer theoretischer Ansätze. Indogermanistik und Linguistik in Dialog, XIII: Akten der Fachtagung der Indogermanischen Gesellschaft, vom 21. bis 28. September 2008 in Salzburg ed. by Thomas Krisch & Thomas Lindner, 120–130. Wiesbaden: Reichert.Google Scholar
CTH. Laroche
(1971).Google Scholar
Dixon, Robert M.W
1994 Ergativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Friedrich, Johannes
1930 Die hethitischen Bruchstücke des Gilgameš-Epos. Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und verwandte Gebiete N.F. 39.1–82. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Friedrich, Johannes, Annelies Kammenhuber, Paola Cotticelli-Kurras, & Albertine Hagenbuchner-Dresel, et al.
1975ff Hethitisches Wörterbuch: Zweite, völlig neubearbeitete Auflage auf der Grundlage der edierten hethitischen Texte. Heidelberg: Carl Winter Verlag.Google Scholar
Geniušienė, Emma
1987 The Typology of Reflexives. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Güterbock, Hans G., Harry A. Hoffner & Theo P.J. van den Hout
eds. 1980–2005 Hittite Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Chicago: The Oriental Institute.Google Scholar
Hackstein, Olav
2003 Reflexivpronomina, Präverbien und Lokalpartikel in indogermanischen Sprachen. Tocharian and Indo-European Studies 10.69–95.Google Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin
2003 The Geometry of Grammatical Meaning: Semantic Maps and Cross-Linguistic Comparison. The New Psychology of Language Vol. 2 ed. by Michael Tomasello, 211–242. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
HED. Puhvel
(1984ff.).Google Scholar
Hock, Hans H
2006 Reflexivization in the Rig-Veda (and beyond). Themes and Tasks in Old and Middle Indo-Aryan Linguistics, Papers of the 2004 World Sanskrit Conference, Vol. 5 ed. by Bertil Tikkanen & Heinrich Hettrich, 19–44. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.Google Scholar
Hoffner, Harry A. Jr., & Harold C. Melchert
2008 A Grammar of the Hittite Language. Part I: Reference Grammar. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns.Google Scholar
HW2. Friedrich, et al.
eds. (1975ff.)Google Scholar
Jasanoff, Jay
2003 Hittite and the Indo-European Verb. Oxford: Oxford University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Josephson, Folke
2003 The Hittite Reflexive Construction in a Typological Perspective. Language in Time and Space: A Festschrift for Werner Winter on the Occasion of his 80th Birthday ed. by Brigitte L.M. Bauer & Georges-Jean Pinault, 211–232. Berlin: de Gruyter. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kazenin, Konstantin I
2001 Verbal Reflexives and the Middle Voice. Language Typology and Language Universals: An International Handbook ed. by Martin Haspelmath, 916–927. Berlin: de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Kemmer, Susanne
1993 The Middle Voice. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
König, Eckard & Volker Gast
eds. 2002 Reflexives and Intensifiers: The Use of Self-Forms in English. Special Issue of Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik 50:3.Google Scholar
Laroche, Emmanuel
1971 Catalogue des textes hittites. Paris: Klincksieck.Google Scholar
Lazzeroni, Romano
1990 La diatesi come categoria linguistica: studio sul medio indoeuropeo. Studi e saggi linguistici 30.1–22.Google Scholar
Luraghi, Silvia
2010 Transitivity, Intransitivity and Diathesis in Hittite. Indo-evropejskoe jazykoznanie i klassicheskaja filologija 14.133–154.Google Scholar
2012 Basic Valency Orientation and the Middle Voice in Hittite. Studies in Language 36:1.1–32. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Meid, Wolfgang
1975 Probleme der räumlichen und zeitlichen Gliederung des Indogermanischen. Flexion und Wortbildung: Akten der V. Fachtagung der Indogermanischen Gesellschaft, Regensburg, 9–14.9.1973 ed. by Helmut Rix, 204–219. Wiesbaden: Reichert.Google Scholar
Meiser, Gerhard
2009 Zur Typologie des urindogermanischen Mediums. Protolanguage and Prehistory: Akten der Fachtagung der Indogermanischen Gesellschaft, vom 11. bis 15. Oktober 2004 in Krakau ed. by Rosemarie Lühr & Sabine Ziegler, 318–334. Wiesbaden: Reichert.Google Scholar
Neu, Erich
1968 Interpretation der hethitischen mediopassiven Verbalformen. (= Studien zu den Boğazköy-Texten, 5.) Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.Google Scholar
1976 Zur Rekonstruktion des indogermanischen Verbalsystems. Studies in Greek, Italic, and Indo-European Linguistics Offered to L.R. Palmer ed. by Anna Morpurgo Davies & Wolfgang Meid, 239–254. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.Google Scholar
1985 Das frühindogermanische Diathesensystem. Funktion und Geschichte. Grammatische Kategorien: Funktion und Geschichte. Akten der VII. Fachtagung der Indogermanischen Gesellschaft, Berlin, 20–25. Februar 1983 ed. by Bernfried Schlerath & Veronica Rittner, 275–296. Wiesbaden: Reichert.Google Scholar
Nevis, Joel A. & Brian D. Joseph
1992 Wackernagel Affixes: Evidence from Balto-Slavic. Yearbook of Morphology 1992.93–111.Google Scholar
Orel, Vladimir
2000 A Concise Historical Grammar of the Albanian Language: Reconstruction of Proto-Albanian. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Parina, Elena
2007 Reflexivpronomina im Mittelkymrischen. Kelten-Einfälle an der Donau: Akten des Vierten Symposiums deutschsprachiger Keltologinnen und Keltologen; philologische, historische, archäologische Evidenzen. Konrad Spindler (1939–2005) zum Gedenken (Linz/Donau, 17–21. Juli 2005) (= Philosophisch-Historische Klasse, 345) ed. by Helmut Birkhan, 390–396. Wien: Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien.Google Scholar
Petit, Daniel
1999 *su̯e- en grec ancien: la famille du pronom réfléchi. Leuven: Peeters.Google Scholar
2010 Untersuchungen zu den baltischen Sprachen. Leiden: Brill. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Puddu, Nicoletta
2005 Riflessivi e intensificatori: greco, latino e le altre lingue indoeuropee. Pisa: ETS.Google Scholar
Puhvel, Jaan
1984ff Hittite Etymological Dictionary. Berlin: de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Safir, Ken
2004 The Syntax of Anaphora. Oxford: Oxford University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
TDIR = Typological Database of Intensifiers and Reflexives
Available at http://​noam​.philologie​.fu​.berlin​.de​/~gast​/tdir.
Yakubovich, Ilya
2010 Sociolinguistics of the Luvian Language. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar