PIE conjugation

PIE verb stem formation

In PIE inflectional and derivational processes produced verb stems, which were then combined with verb endings to produce an ultimate word. A verb stem tended to reflect aspect, and later in Core IE the subjunctive and optative moods.

Early PIE

The differences between early PIE's verbal inflection (i.e. that seen in the Anatolian branch) and Nuclear IE are striking, and many problems remain unresolved. PIE's derivational system for the most part was reorganised into an inflectional one in Nuclear IE, often with very different meanings of cognate affixes.

The first latter three remained derivational in Nuclear IE whereas the former three became inflectional. For further discussion see Ringe (2017), whence the above table.¹ Verb stems were arbitrarily classed as either thematic or athematic, where thematic stems end in ablauting -é/ó- and athematic stems always ended non-syllabically.

Core IE

Aspect

Core IE aspect was either encoded in the ==root, inflectional affixes, or derivational suffixes==.² The most extensive system by far was that of the imperfective, which was also the only aspect that could be formed derivationally. See Core IE paradigm architecture for the distribution of aspect stems. Naturally thematic stems are always inflected.

Imperfective

• Suffixless stem
  • Root imperfective. %% fold %% Some roots were intrinsically imperfective and bore no inflectional affix.
    • h₁(é)s- ‘be’
    • h₁ḗ/éd- ‘be eating’
  • Reduplicated imperfective with Ce- %% fold %%
    • dʰé-dʰ(e)h₁ ‘be putting’
  • Reduplicated imperfective with Ci- %% fold %%
    • stí-st(a)h₂- ‘be getting up’
• Inflectional athematic
  • Nasal infixed imperfectives with -n(é)-. %% fold %%
    • li-n(é)-kʷ- ‘be leaving behind’
    • tḷ-n(á)-h₂ ‘be lifting’
  • Imperfective with -n(é)w- %% fold %%
    • tṇ-n(é)w- ‘be stretching’
• Inflectional thematic
  • Simple thematic imperfective with a plain thematic vowel suffix %% fold %%
    • bʰér-e/o- ‘carry’
    • su(H)-é/ó- ‘push’³
  • Reduplicated thematic imperfectives with Ci- %% fold %%
    • sí-sd-é/ó- ‘be (in the process of) sitting down’
  • Thematic imperfectives in sḱé/ó- (durative, possibly ∅-grade root?) %% fold %%
    • pṛsḱé/ó- ‘keep asking’
  • Thematic imperfectives in -yé/ó- %% fold %%
    • wṛǵ-yé/ó- ‘be working’
  • Thematic imperfectives in -ye/o- with root accent %% fold %%
    • gʷʰédʰ-ye/o- ‘keep asking for’
  • Thematic imperfectives in -se/o- which were possibly originally desiderative. %% fold %%
    • h₂lék-se/o- ‘protect’
• Derivational athematic
  • ∅-grade adjective + -éh₁- → stative (formed a Caland root) %% fold %%
    • h₁rudʰ-éh₁- ‘be red’ ← h₁rewdʰ- ‘red’
  • adjective + -h₂- → factitive %% fold %%
    • néwa-h₂- ‘renew’ ← néwo- ‘new’
• Derivational thematic
  • o-grade verb + -éye/o- → transitives, sometimes causative or iterative %% fold %%
    • sod-éye/o- ‘seat (someone)’ ← sed- ‘sit down’
    • bʰor-éye/o- ‘be carrying around’ ← bʰer- ‘carry’
  • basic verb or reduplicated verb + -(h₁)se/o- → desiderative %% fold %%
    • wéyd-se/o- ‘want to see’ ← wéyd- ‘catch sight of’
    • kí-kḷ-h₁se/o- ‘try to conceal’ ← ḱel- ‘hide’
  • basic verb + -syé/ó → desiderative %% fold %%
    • bʰuH-syé/ó- ‘want to become’ ← bʰuH- ‘become’
  • unaccented nominal with e-grade ending + -yé/ó- → Denominative %% fold %%
    • h₁regʷes-yé/ó- ‘get dark’ ← h₁régʷes- ‘darkness’
    • somHe-yé/ó- ‘make (things) the same’ ← somHó- ‘same’
  • unaccented adjective with o-grade ending + -yé/ó- → factitive %% fold %%
    • h₁lewdʰero-yé/ó- ‘make free’ ← h₁léwdʰero- ‘free’

Perfective

It is entirely possible that all perfective were root perfective, as every other class is at least slightly controversial and may be explained away. See Ringe (2017) for discussion.

• Suffixless stem
  • Root perfective, by far the most common (see above) %% fold %%
    • gʷ(é)m- ‘step’
    • bʰuH- ‘become‘ (alternately bʰ(e)wh₂-)
• Inflected athematic
  • -s-perfective (called sigmatic aorist), constant root emphasis typically with long/short alternation %% fold %%
    • dḗ/éyḱ-s- ‘point out’
    • wḗ/éǵʰ-s- ‘transport in a vehicle’
• Inflected thematic
  • Simple thematic perfective %% fold %%
    • h₁ludʰ-é/ó- ‘arrive’
  • Reduplicated thematic perfective %% fold %%
    • wé-wk-é/ó- ‘say’

Stative

• Suffixless stem
  • Root stative, of which only one has been reconstructed: %% fold %%
    • w(ó)yd- ‘know’
  • Reduplicated stative, which were all other statives. Alternating emphasis on ablauting reduplicated syllable. %% fold %%
    • me-m(ó)n- ‘have in mind’

Mood

Tocharian mood inflection differed from that of Core IE in a number of ways, but the Core IE daughters tend to agree:⁴

• Subjunctive stems were formed from an aspect stem with the addition of the thematic suffix -e/o-, called the Core IE thematic subjunctive.
  • Athematic ablauting aspect stem: e-grade + -e/o- %% fold %%
    • h₁(é)s- → h₁és-e/o-
    • h₁ḗ/éd- → h₁éd-e/o-⁵
  • Athematic non-ablauting aspect stem: invariant stem + -e/o- %% fold %%
    • néwa-h₂- → néwa-h₂-e/o-
    • bʰuH- → bʰuH-e/o-
  • Thematic aspect stem: thematic vowels contract to -ē/ō- %% fold %%
    • bʰér-e/o- → bʰer-ē/ō-
    • pṛsḱé/ó- → pṛ-skē/ō-
• Optative stems were formed from the the aspect stem with the suffix -y(é)h₁-.
  • Fixed left-accent athematic aspect stem: ∅-grade aspect stem + ∅-grade -yh₁- %% fold %%
    • h₁ḗ/éd- → h₁éd-ih₁-
    • néwa-h₂ → néwa-h₂-ih₁-
  • Other athematic aspect stem: ∅-grade aspect stem + -y(é)h₁- %% fold %%
    • h₁(é)s- → h₁s-i(é)h₁-
    • bʰuH- → bʰuH-y(é)h₁
  • Thematic stem: o-grade thematic aspect stem + ∅-grade -yh₁-⁶⁷ %% fold %%
    • bʰér-e/o- → bʰér-o-yh₁-
    • pṛsḱé/ó- → pṛ-skó-yh₁-

The optative of the 3pl. had a few peculiarities worth noting

• In the active voice, it appears to always have taken the full-grade ending -ént, even when the stem bore accent.
• In the passive voice, it appears to have retained the archaic -ró ending

These are my own observations based on the conjugations to be observed in Ringe.

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