PIE verb endings
PIE verb endings reflected person and number, as well as voice, tense, and the imperative mood. There appear to be two distinct systems, the latter being the rarer h₂e-paradigm. Both paradigms distinguished between a set of primary and secondary endings1
- In early PIE
- Primary marked the nonpast of imperfective stems
- Secondary marked the past of both perfective and imperfective stems
- Some verbs used the h₂e-paradigm, undistinguished for primary and secondary.
- In Proto-Core IE
- Primary endings marked the nonpast tense of imperfective stems and probably the subjunctive (except in the 1sg. of thematic aspect stems which used the h₂e-paradigm's -o-h₂ instead of -o-m-i)
- Secondary endings marked the optative mood and the past tense tense of both perfective and imperfective stems
- h₂e-paradigm endings (undistinguished for primary and secondary) were used for the stative
Cogwill's paradigm
- For the majority of the paradigm, the basic form is the secondary active, with the primary being derived using the so-called hit-et-nunc particle -i (active 1sg., 2sg., 3sg., 3pl.).
- Some imperatives are derived using the particle -u (active 3sg., 3pl.).
- The active primary 1du. and 1pl. also appear to be derived from the secondary endings by an unknown process.
- The mediopassive originally used a different hit-et-nunc particle -r (mediopassive 1sg., 2sg., 3sg., 3pl.), however was supplanted by -y in Central IE (perhaps taken from the active hit-et-nunc).
- The mediopassive dual and imperative endings are only attested in Greek and Indo-Iranian and they disagree.
- The underlyingly accented endings only surfaced as such when the stem bore no accent, i.e. leftmost accent surfaces (see PIE accent).
Active
| primary | secondary | imperative | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1sg. | -m-i | -m | — |
| 2sg. | -s-i | -s | ∅, -dʰí2 |
| 3sg. | -t-i | -t3 | -t-u4 |
| 1du. | -wós | -wé | — |
| 2du. | -tés | -tóm | -tóm |
| 3du. | -tés | -tā́m | -tā́m |
| 1pl. | -mós | -mé | — |
| 2pl. | -té | -té | -té |
| 3pl. | -(é)nt-i5 | -(é)nt35 | -(é)nt-u5 |
Mediopassive
| primary | secondary | imperative | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1sg. | -h₂á-r | -h₂á | — |
| 2sg. | -th₂á-r | -th₂á | ??? |
| 3sg. | -ó-r or -t-ó-r6 | -ó or t-ó6 | ??? |
| 1du. | -wós-dʰh₂ | -wé-dʰh₂ | — |
| 2du. | ??? | ??? | ??? |
| 3du. | ??? | ??? | ??? |
| 1pl. | -mós-dʰh₂ | -mé-dʰh₂ | — |
| 2pl | -dʰh₂ué | -dʰh₂ué | -dʰh₂ué |
| 3pl. | -ró-r or -ntó-r6 | -ró or -ntó6 | ??? |
h₂e-paradigm
This paradigm did not distinguish primary/secondary, nor active/mediopassive.
Non-finite forms
Core IE participles:
- Active participle with hysterokinetic -(ó)nt-
- Mediopassive participle with -mh₁nó- subject to laryngeal deletion and syllabifaction of /m/.
- Nuclear IE stative participle with -w(o)s-
- Poorly attested Core IE aspect stem infinitive with -dʰyo-, probably only for imperfective stems. The infinitive is a noun derived from verb roots in most daughters.
#state/tidy | #lang/en | #SemBr
Footnotes
-
2017, From Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic, pp. 38–41 ↩
-
Likely an emphatic ending added to ending less forms. ↩
-
Ending may have ben voiced due to a phonological rule. ↩ ↩2
-
This was possibly -t-ow (daughters disagree). ↩
-
The active 3pl. followed aversion of the ∅-grade rule: the full grade only surfaced for athematic, unaccented stems. ↩ ↩2 ↩3
-
The former endings were in the process of being replaced by the latter as early as PIE. The consonants appear to be borrowed from active counterparts. The archaic version seems to have been retained for the optative 3pl. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4
-
h₂e 1du. and 1pl. may have been -wéH and -méH respectively. ↩ ↩2