Chapter published in:
Perspectives on Language Structure and Language Change: Studies in honor of Henning Andersen
Edited by Lars Heltoft, Iván Igartua, Brian D. Joseph, Kirsten Jeppesen Kragh and Lene Schøsler
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 345] 2019
► pp. 181–191

Anticausative and passive in Vedic

Which way reanalysis?

In a 2001 publication on reanalysis and linguistic change, Henning Andersen states that “(i)t is not clear yet what constitutes structural ambiguity in surface realizations; this remains a question for the future”. As a tribute to Henning, this paper examines a case of (near-)systematic structural ambiguity regarding Vedic passives and anticausatives and demonstrates that this ambiguity creates serious obstacles to determining whether anticausatives are reanalyzed from passives or vice versa. In fact, given the persistent structural ambiguity it is possible that different speakers preferred different accounts, whether for all relevant verbs, for subsets of the verbs, or even for individual verbs, in individual contexts.
Keywords: reanalysis, structural ambiguity, passive, anticausative, historical change
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Structural characteristics of passive vs. anticausative in Vedic
  • 3.Historical relationship between passives and anticausatives
    • 3.1Early accounts
    • 3.2Kulikov’s accounts and a possible alternative
    • 3.3Another alternative account
    • 3.4A further possibility
    • 3.5Evaluation and conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 18 June 2019
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.345.07hoc
References
Andersen, Henning
1973 Abductive and deductive change. Language 49. 765–793. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
1980 Morphological change: Towards a typology. In Jacek Fisiak (ed.), Historical morphology, 1–50. The Hague: Mouton. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2001 Actualization and the (uni)directionality of change. In Henning Andersen (ed.), Actualization, 225–248. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2006 Synchrony, diachrony, and evolution. In Ole Nedergaard Thomsen (ed.), Competing models of linguistic change: Evolution and beyond, 59–90. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Avery, John
1872 Contributions to the history of verb-inflection in Sanskrit. Journal of the American Oriental Society 10. 219–324. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Delbrück, B[erthold].
1874 Das altindische Verbum aus den Hymnen des Ṛigveda seinem Baue nach dargestellt. Halle: Waisenhaus.Google Scholar
Delbrück, Bert[h]old
1888 Altindische Syntax. Halle: Waisenhaus. Repr 1968, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.Google Scholar
Geldner, Karl Friedrich
(transl) 1951 Der Rig-Veda aus dem Sanskrit ins Deutsche übersetzt und mit einem laufenden Kommentar versehen, 3 vols. (Harvard Oriental Series, 33–35.) Repr. 2003 in one volume (Harvard Oriental Series, 63), Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies.Google Scholar
Griffith, Ralph T. H.
1895–1896. The hymns of the Atharvaveda. Benares/London: Lazarus & Co./Luzac & Co.Google Scholar
Grassmann, Hermann
1873 Wörterbuch zum Rig-Veda. Leipzig: Brockhaus. Repr. 1964, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.Google Scholar
Hock, Hans Henrich
2016 Pāṇini’s language: Real or not? In Andrew Miles Bird, Jessica DeLisi, and Mark Wenthe (eds.), Tavet tat satyam: Studies in honor of Jared S. Klein on the occasion of his seventieth birthday, 101–112. Ann Arbor: Beech Stave Press.Google Scholar
Jamison, Stephanie W., and Joel P. Brereton
(transl) 2014  The Rigveda: The earliest religious poetry of India, 2 vols. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kulikov, Leonid
1996 Vedic -ya-presents: Semantics and the placement of stress. In Wolfgang Meid (ed.), Sprache und Kultur der Indogermanen: Akten der X. Fachtagung der Indogermanischen Gesellschaft Innsbruck, 22.-28. September 1996, 341–350. Innsbruck: Institut für Sprachwissenschaft.Google Scholar
2001  The Vedic ya-presents . Universiteit Leiden Proefschrift.Google Scholar
2011a Drifting between passive and anticausative: True and alleged accent shifts in the history of Vedic -ya-presents. Вопросы языкового родства /Journal of Language Relationship 6. 185–215.Google Scholar
2011b Passive to anticausative through impersonalization: The case of Vedic and Indo-European. In Andrej Malchukov and Anna Siwierska (eds.), Impersonal constructions: A cross-linguistic perspective, 229–254. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2012  The Vedic -ya-presents: Passives and intransitivity in Old Indo-Aryan . Amsterdam: Rodopi. (Revision of Kulikov 2001; not available to me.)Google Scholar
Lubotsky, Alexander
1997  Ṛgvedic word concordance, 2 vols. New Haven: American Oriental Society.Google Scholar
Śarmā Ācārya, Śrīrām
2005 Atharvaveda saṁhitā [ saral hindī bhāvārth sahit ], 1. Mathurā: Gāyatrī Tapobhūmi.Google Scholar
Speijer, J. S.
1886 Sanskrit syntax. Leiden: Brill. Repr. 1998, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.Google Scholar
1896 Vedische und Sanskrit-Syntax. Straßburg: Trübner.Google Scholar
Whitney, William Dwight
1879 Sanskrit grammar including both the classical language, and the older dialects, of Veda and Brahmana. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel. (2nd ed. 1889, repr. 1955, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.)
1905  Atharva-Veda Samhita, translated with a critical and exegetical commentary by William Dwight Whitney, revised and brought nearer to completion and edited by Charles Rockwell Lanman. (Harvard Oriental Series, 7 and 8.) Boston/London/Leipzig: Harvard University/Ginn & Company/Harrassowitz.Google Scholar