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Proto-Indo-European lexical aspect

and stem patterns

Petr Kocharov*

1. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS ON THE PIE STEM PATTERNS


According to the traditional reconstruction, largely based on the Ancient Greek
and Old Indic verbal systems, the finite forms of the Proto-Indo-European (PIE)
verb were derived from three types of tense-aspect stems conventionally labeled
“present”, “aorist”, and “perfect” since they could take the Present, Aorist, and
Perfect Indicative respectively. These three types of stems are usually defined as
expressing the grammatical category of aspect while endings together with the
preterite prefix – augment expressed the tense, person, number, and voice
categories, see Clackson 2007: 114-56 with a concise overview of the PIE verbal
morphology including some issues related to the discrepancies between the
Greco-Aryan and Anatolian verbal systems.
Each stem type could be additionally specified by the ablaut, reduplication,
and a range of affixes. The range of stem kinds per type increases in the
following order: perfect (root perfect, reduplicative perfect) < aorist (root aorist,
sigmatic aorist, reduplicative aorist, thematic aorist) < present (root present,
reduplicated present, infix present, thematic present, *sḱe/o-present, *ye/o-
presents, etc.). This distribution allows to predict that a substantial number of
combinations — stem patterns — existed already in the proto-language. Lexikon
der indogermanischen Verben (LIV), which is nowadays the most comprehensive
reference book on the PIE verb, provides reconstructions of around 1200 roots
with a variety of stem patterns constituted by 20 present stems, 3 aorist stems,
and one perfect stem, not taking into account causatives-iteratives, desideratives,
intensives, fientives, and essives. A comparable paradigmatic diversity is still
observable in Greek and Vedic, the two IE branches that inherited the three-way
* Institute for Linguistic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences ; St. Petersburg
State University. Email: peter.kocharov@gmail.com
Part of research presented in this paper was supported by the research grant of the City of
Paris “Research in Paris 2012” on the invitation of Prof. Anaïd Donabédian (INALCO,
SeDyL). I am grateful to Prof. Charles de Lamberterie and Prof. Konstantin Pozdniakov
for the opportunities to present part of the paper material at their seminars — Grammaire
comparée des langues indo-européennes (EPHE, 24/01/2013) and Linguistique
comparative historique : enjeux théoriques et méthodologiques (INALCO, LLACAN,
22/01/2013). Finally, I acknowledge the financial support of the research grant “The
Proto-Indo-European root and stem-formation constituents” (Russian Science
Foundation, grant n° 14-18-03585, head Prof. Nikolaj Kazansky).

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76 Petr Kocharov

opposition of stems from their common source. Thus, van de Laar (2000)
classified the Homeric verbs according to their stem patterns constructed by over
29 types of present stems, 13 aorist stems, and 6 perfect stems with some verbs
participating in more than one pattern.
It is likely that paradigmatic stem patterns replaced derivational models that
had been connecting these stems at earlier stages of the proto-language. Within
this approach, the grammatical meaning behind the derivational stem patterns
needs to be described predominantly in terms of aspectual semantics and with
respect to the reconstructed lexical aspectual features.

2. MAPPING OF THE ASPECTUAL MEANINGS IN RECONSTRUCTIONS


The modern aspect theory offers fine methodology for describing actionality
(“lexical aspect”) and aspect (“grammatical aspect”), see Bybee & Dahl 1989;
Dik 1989; Klein 1994 among many others.
The famous Vendlerian classification of predicates, based on the semantic
parameters [± progressive], [± durative], and [± telic], distinguishes four actional
classes: states [‒ progressive, + durative, ‒ telic] (e.g. to love), activities
[+ progressive, + durative, ‒ telic] (e.g. to run), accomplishments [+ progressive,
+ durative, + telic] (e.g. to grow up), and achievements [‒ progressive,
‒ durative, + telic] (e.g. to stop); see Vendler 1957. This pioneering
classification, based on English, was later adjusted taking into account
typologically relevant semantic parameters; see Tatevosov 2003 for a survey of
crosslinguistic actionality theory. The [± progressive] parameter was recognized
as arbitrary from the typological perspective, and other parameters have been
suggested in order to distinguish between states and other actional classes:
[± dynamic] (unlike states, processes require the input of energy (Comrie 1976);
however see Filip 1999: 33 and Gorbova 2010: 35-59 on the redundancy of the
[± dynamic] feature for the description of purely aspectual semantics);
[± subinterval property] — if a predicate holds true for a given interval it also
holds true for every subinterval; the latter parameter describes states but not
processes (Taylor 1977).
Aspectual grams define predicates of different actional classes and their phases
from the viewpoint of the topic time. A typologically valid model that describes a
“universal” set of aspectual grams has been suggested by Plungian (2011) who
operates with a set of primary aspectual meanings, which express grams denoting
the relation of the topic time to the phases of a predicated situation, and
secondary aspectual meanings which express aspectual meanings resulting from
the change of the actional class. The primary aspectual meanings denote the
overlap of the topic time and the predicated situation or its phases — beginning,
middle, or final. Thus, Vendlerian achievement verbs have one aspectual gram —
the punctive (topic time covers the entire situation); accomplishments can have
the inchoative (topic time refers to the beginning phase), progressive (topic time
refers to the middle phase), and completive (topic time refers to the final phase);
activities can have the inchoative and progressive but do not have the completive,
while states can have the inchoative (topic time refers to the initial change-of-
state event) or durative (topic time refers to the middle phase of a state). The

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PIE lexical aspect and stem patterns 77

secondary aspectual meanings allow to transfer a predicate from one actional


class to another, e.g. the iterative represents achievement as an activity; the
habitual represents achievement, accomplishment, and activity as a state; the
limitative represents the middle phase of atelic verbs as an achievement1. Aspect
markers combine primary and secondary aspectual meanings, taken alone or
together with non-aspectual grams, in different fashions across languages. The
opposition of the imperfective and perfective markers is a typical case of
clusterization of aspectual grams, which can be found for example in Old Church
Slavonic, and Old Armenian.
Languages conceptualize predicative situations in different ways. If the basic
lexical meaning of a verb covers an entire situation, a sequence of coherent
phases, e.g. a change-of-state event and the resulting state (see Breu 1998), it has
the potential to express all relevant aspectual grams by the forms of its paradigm.
Alternatively, the basic verb may require morphological derivatives to fulfill its
aspectual potential; these derivatives split the paradigm. Finally, coherent phases
of a situation can be described by several distinct lexemes and can then be
formally described as a case of suppletivism or as a set of distinct verbs with
defective paradigms. These ways to map actional and aspectual relations between
predicates are often combined in one language.
The polysemy of aspectual markers as well as the actional and aspectual
potential of lexemes are thus two sides of the same coin and their relation to each
other should ideally be established for each of the stages of the proto-language in
terms of the universal inventory of aspectual parameters and grams.
In order to apply the aspect theory to the proto-language correctly, one has to
find out which of the lexical aspectual contrasts were morphologically
significant. The limitations of lexical reconstruction and the work of
morphological analogy are the two major hindrances for research on aspect in
PIE. However, as the reconstruction of stems patterns becomes increasingly
precise for each of the reconstructed PIE verbs, it seems to be worth an effort to
establish correlations between the lexical semantics and stem patterns in order to
open new perspectives for describing the grammatical meaning of stems, stem-
forming affixes, as well as the lexical meaning of roots. A probative case study
has been recently carried out by Bartolotta (2009) who demonstrated the
relevance of [± telic] lexical feature for PIE stem morphology on the evidence of
the Vedic injunctive and the Homeric augmentless preterite forms. However the
[± telic] feature alone seems to be insufficient for the adequate explanation of the
PIE verbal stem patterns, and further research in this direction remains to be
done. Moreover the [± telic] feature is notoriously sensitive to the semantic
features of arguments of a predicate and may not be lexicalized in the verbal
lexeme as such; see Paducheva 2009 for further literature on aspectual
composition. It makes the application of this feature ambiguous for the
classification of verbal lexemes outside their contextual uses.

1 Discrepancies between the terminological labels of different aspectological traditions


should not be the source of misunderstandings if a clear statement is provided about the
actional class and its phase for each gram of the “universal” set.

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78 Petr Kocharov

3. THE ACTIONALITY OF THE PIE DERIVATIONAL AND INFLECTIONAL VERBAL


MARKERS

According to Karl Hoffmann (1970), the PIE tense-aspect system was close to
that of Greek and Indo-Iranian languages. The indicative mode had Present,
Aorist, Imperfect, and Perfect tenses. The Aorist and Imperfect shared the
preterite prefix (augment) and endings, while the Present and Imperfect shared
stems. Such distribution of markers unambiguously points to an aspectual
opposition between perfective (“aorist stem”) vs. imperfective (“present stem”) in
the preterite. The Perfect tense had a resultative meaning (“erreichte Zustand”;
this interpretation of the perfect stem goes back to neogrammarians (see
Brugmann 1913: 83). The perfect stem as such was another perfective marker,
while the perfect endings were reserved for one actional class only, namely that
of states. The assumption that perfect tense endings had the stative meaning
agrees with the fact that the present (primary) and preterite (secondary) endings
go back to one set of atemporal person markers still seen in the Vedic injunctive
and augmentless preterit forms in Homeric Greek. Hoffmann’s analysis suggests
that this atemporal inflection had the lexical features [+ dynamic] and [± telic] as
opposed to the perfect inflection which had the features [‒ dynamic] and [‒ telic].
The tense category developed after the free deictic particle i grammaticalized into
the hic et nunc affix in PIE, cf. the Hittite present tense endings; the preterite
tense category was further reinforced by the augment, probably only in part of the
late Indo-European dialects, ancestors of Indo-Iranian, Armenian, Phrygian, and
Greek2.
A different approach was proposed by Warren Cowgill (1973; 1974: 563) who
assumed that the perfect stem marked the actional class of states and not a
perfective cluster of aspectual meanings in late PIE after the break-off of the
Anatolian branch. This view is recognized in Sihler 1995: 564-68 and Fortson
2010: 104-05.
The difference between the perfective and stative interpretation of the perfect
stem is significant in that the [± dynamic] parameter, mostly related to lexical
features of the subject, is considered as being morphologically embedded in the
stem (Cowgill’s approach) or inflection (Hoffmann’s approach). Hoffmann’s
scenario suggests that there was a stage when PIE only had perfective and
imperfective stems that could take one and the same set of personal endings
except for one kind of perfective stems which was capable of taking a separate
stative inflection. One would know of the aspectual features of the original root
stems by their later distribution across stem patterns. Hoffmann’s binary
aspectual system predicts that verbs that belong to the actional class of states
would have root presents, while Cowgill’s system necessitates a special
explanation for stative predicates with root presents. Notice that prototypical
stative *h1es- ‘be’ had a root present and no traces of the perfect stem.
2 I argue that the PIE present tense endings evolved on the bases of verbs with the
inherent lexical feature [+ durative] but not necessarily [‒ telic] unlike the scenario
proposed in (Bartolotta 2009) since accomplishment verbs ([+ telic]) could, in principle,
have secondary imperfective stems before the rise of -i present tense marker.

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PIE lexical aspect and stem patterns 79

A growing consensus is centered around the third possibility valid for the stage
of the proto-language close to Greek and Indo-Iranian - the three aspectual stems
expressed the following aspectual clusters: perfective (aorist stem), imperfective
(present stem), and resultative gradually turning into a true perfect and further
preterite in the daughter languages (perfect stem); see Kümmel 2000. There are
hints that the perfect system was centered on the subject-oriented and not object-
oriented resultatives, cf. perf. τέτοκα ‘have given birth’ always of female subjects
although pres. τίκτω ‘beget; give birth’ could be applied to both male and female
subjects in Homeric Greek (Clackson 2007: 121).
In fact, the aspectual meaning of the perfect stem could be more complex. The
perfecto-present verbs found in Homeric Greek, Vedic, and Avestan could
denote an aspectual meaning which cannot be described as “resultative” (cf. Gk.
ἄνωγα ‘command’, Ved. āha-, Av. ād- ‘say, declare’). The lexical distribution of
perfecto-present verbs (predicates of utterances, sound performance, sense
perception, cognition, psychological states), their observable decay in the history
of respective languages, and parallels in the Anatolian branch (cf. Hitt. wewakk-
‘ask’) allow us to assume that we are dealing here with an archaic Aktionsart
which can be provisionally labeled “immediate and continuous effect” apud
Maslov (1948) who described it for Modern Standard Russian. This feature
characterizes predicated situations which can be considered effective whatever
short the time of their fulfillment might be. The punctive construal of these verbs
expressed by the perfective stem is co-referential with the durative phase of their
processual or stative construals marked by the imperfective stem.
Taking into account the lexical aspectual features [± subinterval property],
[± durative], and [± telic]3, one can reconstruct the following primary and
secondary aspectual meanings as the central ones for the three aspectual clusters
of the Greco-Aryan system:
IPFV. PFV. RES.
States durative inchoative punctive
Activities progressive inchoative punctive
iterative limitative
habitual
Accomplishments progressive inchoative resultative
iterative limitative
habitual completive
Achievements iterative punctive resultative
habitual
The table above shows that the three types of stems had different aspectual
potential when derived from verbs of different actional classes. This trivial
phenomenon can be illustrated by Latin prefix co(m)- which normally has the
inchoative value for state and activity verbs, and completive value for
accomplishment verbs (Haverling 2000). Presumably, late PIE, like Modern
3 Other approaches to mapping the aspect of the PIE verbal lexemes have been employed.
Thus, García Ramón (2002: 110-112), based ultimately on (Ruipérez 1954), operates with
a different set of lexical features: [± durative], [± telic], [± transformative] (the latter
feature primarily refers to the lexical properties of the subject and not the purely aspectual
lexical feature of predicate).

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80 Petr Kocharov

English, belonged to the type of languages where tense-aspect stems constituted


parts of the inflectional paradigm and taken together served to express the aspect
of a verbal lexeme. However, common PIE could have a more complex system of
aspectual features which were regularly marked not (or, at least, not only) by the
forms of inflectional paradigms but by derivatives or even by different verbal
roots. In this respect, the situation in the Tocharian and Anatolian branches are of
special interest; see Melchert 1998 and García Ramón 2002.

4. THE ASPECT AND ACTIONALITY OF *NEW-/*NU-STEMS


Slavic languages provide a salient example of a “simplification” of the
inherited tripartite system to the binary opposition of perfective and imperfective
stems; the intricate clusterization of aspectual meanings and their morphological
expression within paradigmatic patterns largely belong to the history of that
branch even though some of the morphological segments were inherited and
could preserve archaic grammatical values. For example, Modern Russian has the
perfective singulative suffix -nu-, e.g. kus-nu-t’ ‘make a bite’ (PFV: singulative)
beside kus-a-t’ ‘bite’ (IPFV: progressive/habitual), and a less productive
homonymous imperfective suffix, e.g. soh-nu-t’ ‘be drying up’ (IPFV:
progressive/habitual). A comparable, though not identical, polysemy is found in
Old Church Slavonic: according to Lunt (2001: 127-30), the suffix -nǫ-, which
probably goes back to PIE *-new-/*-nu- and is attested in some 60 simplex and
80 prefixed verbs, was a productive perfective marker (e.g. minǫti ‘pass’,
krъknǫti ‘grunt’) although some imperfective stems had it too (e.g. povinǫti sę
‘be obedient’).
Further comparison with Greek, Indo-Iranian, and Armenian supports the
derivational ties between the imperfective *new/nu-stems and telic
(accomplishment) verbs. For instance, PIE *wes- ‘wear clothes’ is reconstructed
with a root present stem (Hitt. wēsta, Gk. εἷμαι ‘id.’) and thus presumably had the
lexical feature [‒ telic]. The inchoative event was marked by a derived sigmatic
aorist *wes-s- ‘put on’ [+ telic] (cf. Toch. B wässāte, Gk. ἕσσαι, Arm. zgecʽay;
(LIV 692 f.)). Secondary imperfective *wes-nu- ‘be putting on’ (Gk. ἕννυμαι,
Arm. zgenum) accompanied the change from the achievement to accomplishment
reading of *wes-s- ([+ telic], [+ durative]). The existence of a stem pattern pres.
*-new- : aor. *-s-, even though it was restricted to the Greco-Armenian subgroup,
provides evidence for the aspectual feature [+ telic] as characteristic for verbs
which belonged to the *new-present pattern. To be sure, this evidence, positive
as it is, does not exclude the possibility of other uses of *-new- suffix due to a
polysemy comparable to the one just illustrated for Modern Russian -nu-.
A similar case is provided by PIE *h2er- ‘receive’. This notion may be easily
construed as telic or atelic depending on the context. However the co-existence
of augmentless aorist ἀρόμην and the augmented sigmatic ἠράμην (Laar 2000:
86) may be taken as the evidence of the basic atelic meaning with a derived
sigmatic perfective *h2er-s-/*h2r̥ -s- tr. ‘win, get’. This sigmatic formation is
neatly paired with the *new-present [+ telic] attested in Gk. mp. ἄρνυμαι tr.
‘receive, gain (esp. of honor or reward)’, YAv. mp. ǝrǝnauu- tr. ‘receive

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PIE lexical aspect and stem patterns 81

(benefits)’, and Arm. aṙnum tr. ‘take’. Arm. aor. act. aṙi is ambiguous — its ṙ can
be either explained by analogy to the present stem where it can be explained by
the regular sound change before n, or it can be taken as a regular outcome of
*h2r̥ -s-. Note that if one assumes that by entering the stem pattern pres. *-new- :
aor. *-s- the root *h2er- was specified as [+ telic] within the Greco-Armeno-Indo-
Iranian domain, its perfective stem should be considered as the dominant stem of
the paradigm, and the hypothesis of the analogical leveling with the present stem
aṙnu- loses weight.
The case of PIE *dhers- ‘have courage’ is of a different sort. The perfect stem
*dhe-dhórs- (Goth. ga-dars, Skt. dadhárṣa, Gk. τεθαρσήκᾱσι) and root aorist
*dhers-, attested in Vedic participle dhr̥ ṣánt- ‘brave, daring’, should be probably
considered as a marker of the durative and inchoative aspects respectively. The
present *new-stem (Skt. dhr̥ ṣ-ṇó-ti, OPers. adạrš-nau-š, OCS drъz-noͅ -ti intr.
‘become encouraged’) marked the durative stage of the telic predicate (*dhers-).
Thus, aor. *dhers- was inchoative in relation to perf. *dhe-dhórs- and completive
in relation to pres. *dhr̥ s-new-. The place that *-new- takes within the stem
pattern of the root *dhers- is clearly consistent with its predisposition towards the
[+ telic] lexical features.
In Hittite, -nu- is a productive causative marker. There are few vestiges of the
origin of the type, cf. PIE *dhǝbh-new-: Hitt. tep-nu-zi ‘diminish’, Skt. dabhnóti
‘deceive’, GAv. dǝbǝnao- (Kloekhorst 2008: 869f.). Even though causative
semantics is involved here, the relation between the progressive phase of the
accomplishment verb, the completive event, and the resultant state remains the
same as in the case of *dhers- examined above. Here again, the suffix *-new- still
marks the [+ telic] imperfective. In principle, the causative function of Hittite -
nu- might have evolved due to the stable correlation between of the telic aspect
and the bounding effect of the direct object which is obligatory of the causative
verbs.
Taking *new-verbs as an example, one can observe the dynamics of
morphological change. It also shows that a certain nucleus of aspectual meanings
may be associated with a certain kind of stem within the larger grouping of
perfective, imperfective, and resultative aspectual clusters. The progressive phase
of accomplishments seems to be the locus for *new-stems, at least in the central
PIE branches.

5. PIE PREDICATES OF SLEEPING AND FALLING ASLEEP: LEXICAL ASPECT AND STEM
PATTERNS

Much remains to be done to refine the currently reconstructed inventory of


paradigmatic patterns and, more importantly, sets of verbs which are attested for
each of the patterns with respect to their lexical aspect features. The application
of stem patterns for lexical reconstruction has been recognized long ago. Thus,
Hoffmann (1970: 30f.) claimed that PIE *peh3- was telic since it had the root
aorist (cf. Ved. aor. ind. ápāt); consequently, the original meaning of the root
must have been ‘make a swallow’ (achievement) while the secondary meaning
‘drink’ (activity) developed under the influence of the derived imperfective

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82 Petr Kocharov

stems. Similarly Cowgill (1974: 563) claimed that verbs with the root aorist were
“lexically telic” (accomplishments, achievements), while verbs with the root
present were “lexically atelic” (activities); therefore PIE *steh2- originally meant
‘stand up’ and not ‘stand’. The major problem of this approach however is the
fact that telicity often depends on the presence of an incremental argument (e.g.
arguments corresponding to the semantic roles of incremental theme, itinerary,
and quality; see Krifka 1998) so that a single lexeme can normally have both telic
and atelic readings depending on the context. In order to check how far we can
go with the reconstruction of aspectual lexical features and how secure the
semantic implications based on the reconstructed stem patterns are, one would
ideally want to reconstruct verbs together with their arguments. However, only
rarely one can confidently establish verbal arguments and therefore gain a more
precise aspectual reconstruction of a predicate. Thus, the well-known formula
*klewos n̥ dhgwhitom ‘imperishable fame’ can be taken as a piece of evidence in
favor of the lexical reconstruction intr. ‘perish (of fame)’ [+ telic] for PIE
*dhgwhey-4.
Another method of investigation of the aspectual lexical features through
lexical meaning is to compare stem patterns of basic vocabulary items. Let us
examine the verb ‘sleep’ which belongs to basic vocabulary and is stative
([‒ telic] and [+ durative]). In principle, its default stem should be either perfect
(within Cowgill’s system), or present (within Hoffmann’s system) in terms of the
late PIE morphology.
The stative predicate ‘sleep’ is logically bound to the change-of-state predicate
‘fall asleep’, which can be construed as either an achievement (‘fall asleep’) or
accomplishment (‘be falling asleep’). The change-of-state predicate, in its turn,
has the aspectual potential to form a resultative form ‘be asleep’. Unlike the
stative verb ‘sleep’ (antipassive), the change-of-state event allows for the
variation of additional semantic parameters, cf. ‘go to sleep’ (volitional
autocausative), ‘make asleep’ (causative), and ‘fall asleep’ (antipassive).
Languages differ in how the connected change-of-state event and state are
mapped in lexicon and morphology. For instance, English stative to know has to
get to know or to learn as its change-of-state pairs, while this relation can be
expressed by purely grammatical means in Spanish, cf. pres. yo sé ‘I know’ and
yo supe ‘I got to know’. In what follows, I will revise a number of PIE
reconstructions related to the predication of being or becoming asleep with
special focus on their stem patterns.
The following roots have been reconstructed for the predication of sleeping in
PIE: *swep- (Hittite, Indo-Iranian, Slavic, Italic, Germanic), *ses- (Hittite, Indo-
Iranian, and Celtic), *dreh1- (Old Indic) together with *drem- (Slavic, Italic) and
*derdh- (Greek), as well as *sleh1b- attested only in Germanic; see (Mallory &
Adams 1997: 526f.; LIV, s. vv.). Another candidate is PIE *(s)newdh- ‘sleep;
doze’, cf. Gk. νυστάζω ‘doze’, Lith. snū ́ ti ‘fall asleep, slumber’, Arm. nnǰem
4 In this case, the derived nasal present *dhgwhi-neh2- (Gk. φθίνω ‘parish’, Ved. kṣiṇāti
‘destroy’) denoted the progressive aspect of an accomplishment predicate. Therefore the
stem pattern pres. *-neh2- : aor. -ø- can be assigned to the lexical domain of
accomplishments [+ durative; + telic].

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PIE lexical aspect and stem patterns 83

‘sleep; fall asleep’ (Kölligan 2007). If several of these lexemes co-existed at a


certain synchronic stage of the proto-language, it is desirable to establish their
original lexical contrast. Explaining the co-existence of several roots with the
same meaning as purely stylistic variants should be the last choice in the
etymological research5.
One of the valid contrastive lexical parameters is the “intensity” of the state
(‘unexpected blackout’, ‘natural sleep’, ‘doze, slumber’). Benveniste (1967)
pointed out that Lat. somnus ‘(natural) sleep’ should be distinguished from sopor
‘blackout (provoked by a soporific or a strike)’ and sōpiō ‘make asleep’ although
both groups continue PIE *swep-; Lat. dormiō, from a different PIE root, fulfills
the verbal slot for a natural sleep. This lexical contrast has implications in the
aspectual features: dormiō and somnus describe a state, while sōpiō – an
achievement predicate. A similar semantic contrast was suggested by Mayrhofer
(1965: 250) for PIE *ses- ‘deep, dreamless sleep; blackout’ and *swep- ‘sleep
(during a planned rest-time)’ and the volitional inchoative event ‘go to sleep’.
Similarly, Benveniste suggested the “intensity” lexical contrast for PIE *swep-
‘sleep’ and *drem- ‘doze’, cf. OCS sŭpati and drěmati (‘dormir’ vs. ‘sommeiller,
être somnolent’), and further for *swep- and *der-/*dr- (without extensions)
taking into account the equation of Ved. ni-drā- and Arm. nihr ‘slumber’
(opposed to Arm. kʽun ‘sleep’) borrowed from an unattested Iranian source *ni-
δrā-. The semantic analysis suggested by Kölligan for *(s)newdh- (2007: 32f.) —
‘nod’ > ‘be sleepy’ > ‘fall asleep, slumber’ constitutes a synonym of *drem-
‘doze’ within PIE.
Beside the mentioned lexical features, the lexemical contrast could be
determined by the inchoative and stative aspect of a single referential situation.
Thus, Jamison (1982-1983) pointed out, against Mayrhofer, that the present stem
of Ved. svap- is very poorly attested in the Rig Veda (impv. svapa VII.55.2; pres.
ptc. svápant- V.44.13, X.164.3) although it becomes more common in later
Vedic literature (Jamison 1982–1983: 8). Ved. sas-, on the contrary, was
praesens tantum and is not attested in the inchoative or causative meanings, cf.
the inchoative interpretation of PIE *swep- ‘einschlafen’ in LIV: 612. Likewise,
Old Avestan hah- (hahmī; Y 34:5: kā īštiš š́ iiaoϑanāi yaϑā vā hahmī “quelle est
la possession pour l’action, ô Mazdā, ou quand je dors (= pour la veille ou le
sommeil)?” (Kellens 1984: 87)), when related to Ved. sas-, points to the root
present stem *ses- (EWAia II: 716f.). According to Jamison’s view, all the
present forms of svápati were created by analogy to the intransitive present sásti.
Further rich textual evidence for the atelic character of Ved. sas- and telic
character of svap-, as well as a convincing scenario of the post-Vedic evolution
of svap-, are provided in Barton 1985. Within Vedic, this view finds support in
the association between sas- and budh- ‘wake up’ (e.g. RV 1.29.3), the latter
being a logical result of the former, and the metaphoric use of svap- in the sense

5 It does not exclude however that a number of contextual synonyms could actually exist.
In Homeric Greek, along with εὕδω and δραθεῖν ‘sleep; fall asleep’ (see below), one
finds: ἀωτέω (ὕπνος) ‘enjoy a sleep’; aor. ἄεσα, pres. ἰαύω, rare ἀέσκω (νύκτα) ‘spend the
night’; βρίζω ‘be sleepy, nod’.

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84 Petr Kocharov

‘die’ (RV 7.18.14), unambiguously [+ telic]6. Such a paradigmatic suppletion,


determined by aspectual lexical features (“Aktionsart-antonyms”), has been
recognized for other PIE verb pairs, e.g. *speḱ- ‘watch’ [‒ telic] and *derḱ- ‘see,
recognize’ [+ telic], or *ḱey- ‘lie’ and *legh- ‘get down’, etc.; see Strunk 1977
and García Ramón 2002.
Both roots *ses- and *swep- are attested in Hittite. Hitt. šeš-/šaš- is a
commonly used verb meaning both ‘sleep; rest; stay overnight’ and ‘fall asleep;
go to sleep; lie down’ (CHD S/3: 439-45), while act./mid. šupp-(tt)a(ri) < mid.
*sup-tó and secondary šuppar-ii̯ a-zi, derived from noun *sup-r- ‘sleep/dream’,
are relatively rare (Kloekhorst 2008: 787-89). Proponents of the actional
suppletion idea explained this situation by the secondary expansion of šeš- to the
telic domain of šupp- within the history of Hittite (Barton 1985: 28 f.). From this
perspective, the fixed use of šeš- together with the reflexive particle -za in the
sense ‘go to sleep; to lie down’ is considered to be a Middle Hittite innovation;
see Hoffner & Melchert 2008: 357-64 on the grammatical and lexical potential of
-za, e.g. ēš- ‘remain seated’ vs. ēš + -za ‘sit down’. Barton further argues that
while šeš- (-za) had the semantic parameter [± control], šupp- and šupparii̯ a-
were [‒ control]. The lexical specification of šupp-, according to Barton,
determined its decline in Hittite in favor of the less restrictive šeš-. The root stem
šeš- was characterized by the productive imperfective suffix -ške/a- and this
derived stem was used often enough to be reinterpreted as a root, whence šešk-
iške/a- and even šešk-išk-iške/a-; see contexts in Kloekhorst 2008: 747; šešk-
could be used in the middle voice quite unlike act. tant. šeš- and could
presumably express the meaning ‘be going to sleep’ [± durative]/[+ telic] already
in the Old Hittite period, cf. p[ai]t⸗aš⸗ššan [GIŠ]NÁ-aš šarkuwanza šešket “He
proceeded to go to sleep in bed with his shoes on” KUB 24.8 i 25‒26 (pre-
NH/NS), see CHD S/3: 440 and Hoffner & Melchert 2008: 322.
The problem with Hitt. šeš- is that it demonstrates the meaning ‘lie (down)’
outside the contexts related to sleeping. This meaning seems to be the only one
that is appropriate with inanimate subjects, e.g. nu šuppa PĀNI DINGIR-LIM še-
eš-zi “The meat stays overnight in front of the deity” (CHD S/3: 442). Moreover,
caus. šeš-nu- means ‘lie down’ besides ‘make asleep’ and ‘put to bed’, cf. [(n⸗a)n
… išta]nani peran ša-aš-nu-an-zi “They make him lie down in front of the altar”
KBo 13.120:14 (rit., MS) (CHD S/2: 306). In my opinion, it is highly unlikely
that the verb ‘sleep’ would become the common designation of spatial position
within the span of time from PIE to Hittite. A reverse semantic change from
‘remain lying; to stay idle; to lie down’ to ‘be asleep; to go to sleep’, on the
contrary, seems quite natural.
The following Proto-Hittite lexico-grammatical distribution looks probable:
act. *ses-ti anim. ‘stay idle (overnight); to sleep’, neut. ‘be lying down’, *ses-
sḱe/o- ‘get down; go to sleep’, mid. *sup-to ‘go to sleep; be asleep’.

6 Notice that PIE perfect stem *swe-swop- (suṣvāp-), if such a form existed, would be a
quasi-exact equivalent to *ses-. Presumably, *swe-swop-, unlike *ses-, implied the
reference to the inchoative event and therefore had the resultative connatation, cf. the
metaphorical use of suṣvāp- in the meaning ‘be dead’ in the Rig-Veda.

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PIE lexical aspect and stem patterns 85

The verbal cognates of PIE *swep- are less decisive in other languages. Thus,
OCS usъnǫti ‘fall asleep’ < *u-sъp-nǫ-, demonstrating the [+ telic] morphology,
is coupled with sъpati ‘sleep’ [‒ telic], both from the same root (Lunt 2001: 119,
28). The Germanic cognates are ambiguous; note however that PGerm. *sufan-
‘sleep’ has the zero-grade present which is likely to be a continuant of the
mediopassive stem allomorph *sup- like Hitt. šupp- (Kroonen 2013: 489).
It remains to comment on the nouns *swop-no-s/*swep-no-s/*sup-no-s ‘a
sleep’ (PToch. *ṣw’äp(ä)ne, OInd. svápna-, Av. xvafna-, Gk. ὕπνος, Lat.
somnus, OIr. sūan, Lith. sãpnas, OCS sъnъ, Alb. gjumë, Arm. kʽun), *swop-r̥
‘dream’ (Hitt. denom. verb suppariya-, Gk. ὕπαρ ‘dream, vision’, Lat. sopor
‘deep sleep’), and *swop-n-(i)yo-m ‘dream’ (OInd. svápnyam ‘dreamy’, Gk.
ἐνύπνιον, Lat. somnium, Lith. sapny͂ s ‘sleep, dream’); see Mallory & Adams
1997: 170, 526f.; Adams 2013: 730. Barton (1985: 36) claimed that the noun was
“Aktionsart-indifferent”. However, if the underlying verbal root was strictly telic
and was lexically opposed in that way to atelic *ses- already in the proto-
language, one wonders why a noun would be formed from *swep-. I believe that
the reason is that *ses- originally meant spatial position and not a physiological
state for which *swep- was reserved.
Of marginal importance is Gk. (κατα-, ἐν-)εὕδω which is attested in Homer as
the thematic -ε/ο- and -σκε/ο- present stems with the stative meanings ‘sleep; to
have rest’ (Laar 2000: 153; Kölligan 2001). According to the textual analysis
carried out by Kölligan, εὕδω and the derived prepositional compounds could
mean both the state and inchoative event (cf. Il. 1.609ff.) although the stative
meaning was more common. Since Benveniste (1935: 156f.), *sew-d- was
compared to *sw-ep-; hesitantly (Laar 2000: 153). It is tempting to put the system
of root extensions in correlation with the opposition of the atelic vs. telic
predicates. If so, *sewd- (and not the suppletive *ses- as Jamison suggested)
would be the true stative counterpart of the inchoative *swep-. However this
internal reconstruction remains highly speculative.
Similarly to *ses- and *swep-, Jamison (against Benveniste) suggested the
actional suppletion of stative *ses- and inchoative *der-. Ved. drā- appears (first
in ŚB) with directive adverbs ní and áva and in the prepositional compound
nidrā ́ - (already in the Rig Veda). Although the internal morphological structure
of the underlying *drehx- remains unclear (resultative *dr-eh1- ?), it certainly
should be derived from *der-/*dr-. In LIV, *derdh- is hesitantly reconstructed as
a distinct root (‘einschlafen’) based on Gk. (παρα-, κατα-)δραθεῖν, it undoubtedly
goes back to PIE *der-, while -θ- of the Greek root may be tentatively interpreted
as a reflexive or autocausative marker, cf. perfective formations in *-dh- like the
passive aorist in *-dhē- (-ϑη-) in Greek. Kölligan (2001: 201-04) demonstrated
that the verb meant ‘go to sleep’ ([+ control]; e.g. Od. 5.471) and ‘sleep’ (e.g.
Od. 23.18, Od. 15.494), but not ‘fall asleep’ [‒ control]. The aorist forms thus
may have the limitative aspectual meaning along with the inchoative one. The
indicated polysemy of the aorist stem allows for the durative interpretation of the
nasal present stem δαρθάνειν. According to Kölligan, originally δραθεῖν was the
inchoative counterpart of stative εὕδω, and only later the preterite uses of these

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86 Petr Kocharov

two verbs, inchoative and limitative respectively, began to merge by the age of
Homeric Greek.
The variant *drem-, another extension of *der-/*dr-, probably existed already
in PIE with the stative meaning; see above on Latin and Slavic cognates (note
however that it is not attested in the Anatolian and Tocharian branches). If the
underlying root *der-/*dr- was punctive, one can speculate that -em- had
imperfectivising nuance whatever its origin, e.g. a nominal stem.
It is noteworthy that PIE *ses- and *swep-, the two basically stative verbs ‘stay
idle’ and ‘sleep’, had root present stems, just like PIE *h1és-mi, while perfect
stems evolved within a restricted dialectal area (Ved. suṣvap-) as a secondary
imperfective used to mark the resultative state or a temporary state co-referential
with its momentary construal. It seems that PIE root *swep-7 originally covered
the change-of-state punctive event together with resultant state, and only later its
use was reduced yielding a number of suppletion patterns in the daughter
languages, e.g. Vedic sas-/svap-.
This presented case studies illustrate that additional research is required to
have a better picture of how the lexical aspectual features of PIE verbs interated
with the multiple stem patterns of the proto-language, which in turn can shed new
light on the PIE verbal morphology.

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