Olivier PIQUERON

CELTIC VERBAL MORPHOLOGY

Deponents, impersonals and passives in Gaulish ?

Old Irish, like most of the older Indo-European languages, has a set of middle endings beside the
normal active ones.
In ancient languages, such as Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, and Hittite, a single mediopassive (or middle-
passive) category is observed for both deponent and passive uses.
The middle is the voice used to denote that the subject is in some way affected by the verbal action
(i.e. Personal involvement, Reflexivity, Reciprocity and Passivity). It is opposed to the active voice
(action does by the subject and realized outside it). The middle voice is said to be in the middle
between the active and the passive voices because the subject often cannot be categorized as either
agent or patient but may have elements of both.
A deponent verb is a media-tantum verb (i.e. it has no active forms). The deponent bears the
mediopassive morphology, but has no active voice (i.e. no reversal of the thematic roles of subject and
predicate), although it is often active in meaning. In stricto sensu I, the verb has agent subjects and
accusative objects but middle endings.
The mediopassive endings are generally those of the active voice with a characteristic middle voice -o,
in which the primary endings have an additional –ior -r, depending on the dialects; Italic, Celtic,
Tocharian, and Phrygian had mediopassive primary endings in –r (Latin. -tur, Umbrian –ter and–r [ferar
fe atu ], Oscan –ter, Marrucinian –ter, OIr. -tha(i)r, Toch. -tär, Phryg. -tor).
The old middle-passive ending system was then apparently sg. -a-,-tha-, -o-/-to-, pl. -ro-/-nto-, to which
primary endings were attached in -i, *-so-i, *-to-i , *-nto-i, or in -r, *-ar, *-tar, *-or, pl. *-ro-r?/*-ntor,
from older *-hₐ-,*-thₐ-, *-o, pl. *-r (based on Beekes, Kortlandt and Haudry s reconstructions). Apart
from this middle-passive voice system, the relic of an old impersonal –ě r’ or *-(e)her ending is also
reconstructed II.
These endings share similarities with the perfect ones, cf. *-hₐe, *-thₐe-, *-e, pl. *-mé-, *-é,*-ḗr
(BeekesIII, Woodard).
All the Neoceltic languages possess an inflection commonly called the "impersonal" similar to that
represented by Latin formation in–r. But in Old Irish, however, the deponent and passive have
undergone a differentiation in forms, whether they show the same stronger subject involvement that
the Proto-Indo-European middle voice would have shown. Example (cf. Thurneysen, 2003):
Absolute Conjunct
Deponent sg. 1 suidigiur -suidigur
2 suidigther -suidigther
3 suidigidir -suidigedar
pL. 1 suidigmir -suidigmer
2 suidigthe -suidigid
3 suidigitir -suidigetar
Passive sg. 3 suidigthir -suidigther
pl. 3 suidigtir -suidigter

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As we can see, the stem vowel preceding the third person endings is always retained in the deponent
conjugation (3 sg. absolute - V-dir, - V-thir, conjunct - V-dar, - V-thar, 3 pI. absolute - V-tir, conjunct-V-
tar), while it is lacking in the passive (3 sg. absolute -C-thir, conjunct -C-ther, 3pI. absolute -C-tir,
conjunct -C-ter); This feature suggests that the third person deponent endings are characterized by the
syncopated endings, 3 sg. *-trV and 3 pI. *-ntrV, in contrast to the passive, where the original endings
(?), 3 sg. *er,*-tor and 3 pI. *-ntor, could be inherited (Thurneysen, 2003).

 Latin vs. Old Irish

The Latin mediopassive

In Latin the dual-desinence active/mediopassive system (-o/-r) consists of the active –o form (e.g.
defatiḡ I tire [another] and the mediopassive -r form (defatigor I am tired .
The Latin -r form as opposed to the active form has passive and direct-reflexive functions and personal
or impersonal character. We not only have personal passives in Latin such as am̄tur, dātur, formed
from transitive verbs, but also impersonal passives such as ̄tur, (bene) valetur. In all of its usages the
oppositional -r form is accompanied by syntactic derivation. Syntactic passivization has two
components:  demotion of the agent from the subject position;
 promotion of the patient from the position of transitive object to that of subject.
Agent-from-subject demotion takes place in both the personal and impersonal passive.
This is a Latin innovation for the IE mediopassive verb is not a syntactic diathesis but a semantic version
of the active.
A Latin deponent is understood (as first pointed out by Zimmer who thus explained the use of the
accusative pronouns with these "passive" forms in Celtic and Italic) to be a verb bearing the
(medio)passive-r form, but having no active-voice transformation, and sometimes even bearing an
active meaning. The traditional view is that the first deponents originated as true passives (or
mediopassives), but so eho a e to la aside depono thei passi e o middle meanings, along
with their active-voice transformations. In many cases, deponents are assumed to have gained an
accusative-complemented sense at a later stage in the language (e.g., sequor). The Latin
(medio)passive morphology itself is seen as a reflex of that of the Indo-European middle.
This originally active meaning of the -r form (in the third person singular passive) is the cause of the
remarkable development of the impersonal use of the passive in Latin (e.g. ̄tur it is gone i.e. a journey
is made ), which was extended to all tenses of the passive, so soon as its origin was forgotten.
Broadly stated the Latin mediopassive is a passive voice, but with some element of resultant state,
process, action, or reaction. And often, deponent verbs have stative-copular or mediopassive-copular
e ui ale ts i E glish e, get ).
The Latin deponents have remained close to the passives throughout their history. It is clear that the
creation of deponents and passives in Latin is part of an old tradition. The most ancient deponents are
intransitives which have often passive meanings: cōnor try , liquor dissolve , morior die , queror
complain , orior ise , reor think , sequor follow .
More, evidence of the meaningfulness of the deponent lies in the fact that, at least for a time, the
deponent became a productive form.
To summarize, verbs with any kind of mediopassive meaning are realized either exclusively in an -r
form verb (deponents) or are represented by both actives and deponents (e.g., ed̄ vs. ṷ escor, saliō vs.

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proficiscor). One could not say, for example, **edor I eat for ed̄, but there was the deponent ṷ escor,
which could be seen as a modification of the semantic field of ed̄.
The mediopassive in Old Irish
At first glance, Old Irish seems different from Latin for the impersonal verbs are used as
(pseudo)passive forms.
 In old Irish, the impersonal passive form occurs with all verbs, whether intransitive or transitive, in
all tenses. But whereas Latin has developed a complete passive set of endings, Old Irish, between the
lines, shows how the transition from the initial impersonal construction to the final passive one may
have occurred. In sentences with a pronominal subject, it can be seen that the form of the verb remains
unchanged (i.e. impersonal), and that the indication of the person is expressed but by the personal
pronoun infixed between the preverb and the verb itself (e.g. do-m-berar, do-t-berar,… I am, ou e
ought , i.e. it brings me, you)
In Latin, the deponent is more closely associated with the passive and, to the extent that it survives,
the middle voice; in Old Irish, the deponent belongs with the active voice (the deponent endings are
essentially meaningless in Classical Old Irish) although an oppositional middle meaning is most
probably at its origin in Proto-Irish (especially de deverbal forms as ro.fitir, idithir, gai ithir…).
Both in Old Irish and Italic, the impersonal forms of the verb often occur without the third-person
singular morpheme and are instead characterized by the sole morpheme -r, as a specific impersonal
marker: OIr. berar one bears , Umbr. ferar, but. Lat. feratur; Umbr. ier, but Lat. ītur. In these same
languages, they can also be used in passive constructs, but from a diachronic point of view, such use
must be considered as a further step in the transition toward a typologically stronger nominative-
accusative characterization of the historical languages.

 The Brittonic comparison

Brittonic is not helpful! All the Brittonic languages possess the "impersonal" inflection and only one or
two traces of a special deponent remain (specially W. ĝyr, Br. goar, Co. gor knows ).The British
languages at their earliest attestations show the same structure than Irish: i.e. two main varieties of
passive singular (>impersonal) endings in -r, one with dental and one without ; e.g. in Old Welsh, the
impersonal present endings are in -tor (absolute), -ir (conjunctive) : cephitor it is e ei ed , eirimotor
it is o side ed , rincir it is eeded , tarnetor it is e ko ed . Subjunctive forms in -her could be added.
All of this implies that the passives of Irish and British that have dental before -r can be derived without
difficulties (see Cowgill) from PIE -tor (singular) and -ntor (plural). But it does t allo to a s e the
question of why and how the IE mediopassive seems to split up in (Insular?) Celtic, with the old 1st and
2nd persons functioning as deponents and the old 3rd persons as passives whereas for 3rd person
deponent Irish uses new forms, and for 1st and 2nd person passive, all Insular Celtic languages use forms
in which the 3rd singular passive behaves like an impersonal active verb, with object pronouns marking
person and number of the patient.
But the most important and intriguing question is whether a Common Celtic mediopassive existed or
not and by extend, did deponent verbs exist throughout the Italic and Celtic family of languages.

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 The Gaulish evidences

As a matter of fact, very little is known about the verbal morphology of Gaulish, due to the insufficient
material available and its fragmentary nature. But we can reasonably suggest that the verb, like in
Indo-European is marked for tense, mood and voice.
For the latter, there is good evidence in the corpus, a few forms terminated in -r having been collected
(cf. DLG et LG): Present 3rd pl. (passive?) diligentir, desiderative 1st sg. dep./pass. marcosior, optative
3rd pl. pass. ni-tixsintor, Celtiberian ne-bintor…But it is difficult to claim whether they are active
deponents or passive in voice. To those usually admitted forms I will tentatively add three others:
exugri, ṷ elor and lop/tites (for explanations see below).
Two sets of endings: -tir and -tor
Much like Umbrian, Gaulish seems to show a distinction in its mediopassive endings in the 3rd person:
-tir vs -tor. In Umbrian, a distinction is alleged between a primary -ter ending (also without -t as in ier,
i ̄tur and a secondary -tur ending.
As far as Gaulish is concerned, it is usually assumed (but sometimes with difficulties!) that the
phonetically decaying verbal endings (i.e. the apocope of the final short -i of the Indo-European
primary endings in the non-initial unaccented verb forms) deleted the old opposition between IE
primary marked ("present") endings, used for present tense of the indicative mood of imperfective
verbs and secondary u a ked past o "te seless" e di gs, used for the past tense of the indicative
mood of imperfective verbs (imperfect), the indicative mood of perfective verbs (aorist) and the
optative mood.
It is also alleged that Celtic languages develop a new opposition of endings for the imperfective tenses,
by trying to explain the ste ious origin of the Insular Celtic imperfect, formed from the present
stem + endings based mostly on middle o e s (cf. Thurneysen et aliiIV). As the examples above seem
to indicate, the -tir ending could be a primary one (athematic present) and the -tor one a secondary
(optative).
Coming to that point, it is useful to try to explain why IE middle came to be used for imperfective past
(and tenseless forms?), removing the old primary vs secondary distinction and completely transformed
verbal morphology in Insular Celtic.

 Towards a new set of primary and secondary endings in Insular Celtic and Gaulish ?
Proto-Indo-European never had a regularized verbal system organized into conjugations in which a
verb belonging to a single conjugational class possessed a complete "paradigm". The oldest stages of
IE languages (especially Vedic Sanskrit) reveal clear remains of a less organized system than the
modern and even classical languages, where a given verb root might have multiple ways, or no way at
all, of being conjugated in a given tense/aspect category.
This clearly suggests that the tense/aspect categories originated as separate lexical verbs, part of a
system of derivational morphology and only gradually became integrated into a coherent system of
inflectional morphology, which was still incomplete at the time of many of the IE proto-languages. E.g.
if you want to express a current English verb in its different tenses in the PIE way, you would use a
variety of means (i.e. derivation, suppletion): by adding different suffixes to the root of the verb or
using a root of the sa e ea i g ut ith a diffe e t aspe t o de i atio of a ou …

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Nowadays, tenses and voices are the bases of all inflectional categories in which a verb could be
conjugated. But in PIE times, only imperfective verbs allowed distinctions in indicative tense, all other
verbs were tenseless.  necessity to derive stative and perfective verbs into imperfective one.
As far as voices are concerned, not all IE verbs could shift from active to passive voice and vice versa;
some verbs were activa-tantum (i.e. active only), other media-tantum (i.e. passive only).
The first are stative ve s to sit, to thi k, … o verbs denoting physical bodily or mental processes
(to sleep) or some motion verbs (to go, to walk) and verbs of speech. They were non-ergative at their
origin i.e. the do t ha e a eal agent, the subject being physically or mentally affected as a result of
the event) and thus became intransitive at IE time. The latter are verbs in which the subject is both
agent and patient.
This point is important for the comprehension of the evolution of the PIE verbal system to the Celtic
one concerning its temporal aspect. For most of the transitive verbs, the present was expressed by the
imperfective present and the past by imperfect or aorist (I kill / I killed), the latter being often used as
an unmarked past tense. But for the media-tantum, the past (the accomplishment of the action) was
expressed by the perfect, i.e when the stative came to develop a resultative meaning. I die, I dead).
From PIE to Common Celtic
When a system focused on aspect shifted to one focused on tense, i.e when perfect and aorist merged
to express preterit (from state acquired by the subject to a state acquired by the object), a renewed
opposition between uncompleted and completed actions took place.
(1) I die (middle = present action / I dead (perfect = present state) – media-tantum
(2) I kill (imperfective present) / I killed (perfect = preterit) – transitive verbs
 (3) Past uncompleted action = middle / past completed action = perfect.
In this new verbal system, the primary endings are used for imperfective present, the middle (or a
mixture of middle and secondary endings for other persons than the 3rd?) for imperfect (and elsewhere
in lieu of the old secondary endings). The aorist is left for other uses and takes a modal value. It could
be used for acts that are wished to be realized and takes a subjunctive value (as semantically in the
Latin formula do ut des). In that case, Celtic employs the sigmatic aorist (old PIE aorist middle with
causative value, cf. Watkins, The sigmatic aorist).
Consequences for the Celtic verbal system
1) The old PIE opposition between primary and secondary endings totally vanishes (i-apocope when
the verb is unaccentuated);
2) The necessity to create new endings to express the mediopassive voice;
3) The renewal of the forms for media-tantum verbs.
PIE endings available Active Middle
Imperfective prés. /past ti/t (t)or/o
Stative e, ē̌r (pl.) rē (pl.)

The PIE -r is an element that was added in singular and 3rd plural mediopassive endings to turn them
into primary endings. This is still its function in Hittite and Tocharian (See Cowgill). In Celtic, with
the loss of distinction between PIE primary and secondary endings this -r came to function itself as
a marker of mediopassive voice. It is at the origin of the impersonal passive of Insular Celtic.

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 The deponents spread from the media-tantum verbs (but all of them are not deponents).
The origin of the 3rd -rV endings is to be found in a set of deponent verbs in preterit in Insular Celtic,
as stative predicates (> perfect) in general tend to take non-active morphology V.
E.g. OIr. ro.fitir, Mid.W ĝyr. As Thurneysen already pointed (Thurneysen 2003), those are close
the Vedic 3rd pl. middle widr-ē. The 3rd sg. .fitir is a perfecto-present (*widr-ī) and gŵ yr its probable
past counterpart (<*weidr-ī <*wewidr-ī?). Other OIr. verbs like míd(a)ir could also have played some
part VI. The original present sense of the IE perfect is seen in the Germanic preterit-present verbs
and Ancient Greek hoída, which retain its essentially present tense meaning "I know" (< PIE *woidhae,
originally "I am in a state resulting from having seen").
Celtic verbal system Active Passive (impersonal) Deponent
Imperfective primary t(i) (t)ir̄̌ tri ̄̌
Imperfective secondary to tor tro
Perfect e - ri ̄
The endings reconstructed above for the middle are partly analogical with active, partly based on a
hypothetical PIE impersonal –ě r’ or *-(e)her. The deponents are analogical. The deponent forms
were at first useful when it could be hard to tell who is the actor and who is the acted of an action.
The best example is the IE mediopassive root *sekʷ- ( follow ,). It is difficult to say who plays the
main action (the S or the O).
It is also probable that absolute and conjunct were originally identical in proto-OIr. and that the
double system was extended later (for examples see above p.1).
At this stage, I ould t gi e any explanation (other than a transitional stage) why mediopassive
forms are only used for impersonal (3rd pers.) and the other for deponent.
4) As secondary causative verbs based on intransitive (*sodéyeti imperfective type) ould t ha e
perfect, an aorist must express the preterit. The subjunctive of those verbs ought to be different from
the transitive (cf. OIr. a-subjunctive ?).
5) The secondary denominative verbs tend to follow this latter category (because of their frequent
causative value).

 Coming back to Gaulish

After this somewhat too concise and theoretical explanation of the origin of the verbal system of
Insular Celtic, is it possible to find any element that can proof the veracity of the construction ?
Gaulish diligentir (Larzac tablet, line 1b3VII) is most probably an athematic present passive of the IE root
*dlig-, as pointed by Fleuriot (contra Delamarre, DLG); directly comparable to OIr. dlegtair is required,
is due, right, necessary , also Welsh dyle for i-epenthesis. It contrasts with ni-tixsintor sies (Larzac,
1a7VIII) which is an optative (Cf. Lambert, LG). This latter form is interesting because it shows an
accusative construction of the redundant subject (sies is more probably accusative than nominative, <
*si ̥ s), like in Insular Celtic. The use of accusative for the emphatic subject is not unusual nor
unparalleled (cf. Gaulish pres. 1st pers. in -umi, analyzed in -ū + mē,́ acc. pronoun). Those contrastive
endings in a same text seem to prove the existence of the renewed primary and secondary endings.
The form marcosior (desiderative 1st sg., Autun inscription) does t offe a e titude ut is ost
p o a l depo e t je veux he au he a e M. athe tha je veux t e he au h pa M. , f. DLG .
In that case, Gaulish could have developed a parallel Inflectional paradigm to OIr. or Latin.

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There is perhaps a more resilient hint of the presence of deponent with the word exugri (Marcellus of
Bordeaux, De medicamentis). The etymology is lacking in DLG but the general connotation given of this
verb in the sentence exugri, conexugri glion… exugri, conexugri lau is to get out, go out, to depa t . I d
rather lean towards comparing this verb with Latin proficiscor ( go away , depa t ) and make it
deponent. Motion verbs tend to be deponent and exugri is felt as a motion verb. The etymology is
highly unsecure but the form is similar to Old I ish .uicc-verbs like do-uccai, ro-uccai …, the
prepositions Olr. oc, MW wnc, wng 'near, at' from Celtic *onko ha i g ea hed (see Matazovic), and
the meaning to MW ech-wng Ve t ei u g , e pulse (cf. Pokorny) via the PIE root *hanek- reach,
attain and posits a form *exs.onkrī (*onkri ̄ > *uŋg i ̄ > *ū̌ gri ̄). The verb must be reflexive (cf. French
s e alle . The formation of this verb is far to be easy: OIr. do.uccai looks like a causative form (<
*onkéye/o). But this suppletive verb to do.beir is essentially perfective and its s-preterit do.uicc (*onk-
i-s-t) should be a late refection. Posit then an anti-causative (anti-causatives are often inflected in the
middle, see Grifith 2010 & Grestenberger IX), built on a non-reduplicated perfect ? MW has perfect in
*-ouke (duc, amuc, goruc, the first conflating with Latin ducěre), inflected like OIr. BIII verbs of
Thu e se s lassifi atio (ūgrī <*oukrī?). A denominative (from a Gaulish counterpart of ech-wng) is
a mere possibility.
As far as the text is concerned, an imperative is commonly expected for the formula; exugri, conexugri
glion get out, sti k thi g! seems to be an accurate translation. But how does explain it? A perfecto-
present is, I think, also satisfactory: it goes out, it has go e out, sti k thi g ith con.exugri built on
the simplex plus a perfective preverb -con marking achievement.
At this stage and without other examples, it is not sure that Gaulish has developed a complete
paradigm for deponents like in Old Irish (i.e. no imperfective present or past). More, the development
towards a coherent and regularized system of inflectional morphology is probably not achieved in
Gaulish.
Ho e e , I athe te pted to add two last verbal forms: ̭elor in the same inscription than above
and *lop/tit̄s. The latter looks like (whatever is the verb) a 2nd sg. imperative (<middle secondary
ending, see Thurneysen). But it is a mere conjecture (also 3rd sg present + pronoun suffixed). The
former usuall t a slated I ish , has no correlate in Insular Celtic but could be a 1st sg present
deponent verb (I prefer the root PIE ṷ el to see  Aisus scrissumio uelor Aisus, I see that I spit , more
accurate with the perfecto-present tense of exugri and attested in OIr. fil, W. gweled).
If the theoretical verbal system elaborated above is (at least) at early stage of achievement in Gaulish,
the striking question remains why a 3rd plural personal ending came to be used and extended to other
persons?
The answer is quite not difficult regarding the i pe so al if one think to the ways it can be expressed
i IE ode la guages: F e h o dit i.e. an unspecified or several person(s) is/are supposed to say),
but Ge a a sagt o E glish o e sa s (i.e. one man - at least- says … I informal F e h, o is
usually used i stead of ous e.g. o a! , o a fai = ous allo s , ous a o s fai ) and
t a slated e i to E glish. X

It is t so eas about the deponents but I think the origin is to be sought in the perfecto-present of
some verbs which needed a kind of reflexivity to be a ti e: e.g. I k o ho / I a le to do it = I
seeing me doing it; I deem / I estimate = I measure out, I figure me; I suffe … or change of state verbs.
Rq. Deponent doesn't need to be reflexive, it just needs to be hard to tell who is the agent and who is
the patient (cf. seichidir), or the verb can include the object in its action. A reconstructed Gaulish verb

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*deprosagī- (parallel to Br. debrĩn), most likely deponent (like OIr. sonairtnaigidir becomes strong <
*sunertusagī-, cathaigidir fights < catusagi ̄-) could has meant nourish rather than eat .

 Further implications

(1) An IE class of deverbative verbs in -ye/o, built on zero-grade root with accent on the thematic vowel
(i.e. *(∅)-y-éti /*(∅)-y-ónti) was used to form mostly intransitive imperfective verbs, often deponent.
The exact counterpart of this class is the OIr gainithir e o f o PIE *gnheyet + Celtic -rV. But other
have develop a n-present like (with iterative meaning) OIr. ro-finnadar // ro.fitir.
The verb ro.cluinethar must belong to this latter derivation and coming from *klu(n)ye/o, hence
Gaulish cluiou in Chateaubleau tile.
(2) Another class of deverbative in ye/o is based on accented e-grade verbs + ye/o suffix, and used to
form transitive imperfective verbs from intransitive perfective verbs.
Semantically, a parallel verb is found in OIr. ad.gnin e og ize ut its fo atio is uite p o le ati .
The n-present is most probably a late refection; the Gaulish verb gniiou (Chateaubleau) may show the
earlier stage. Old Irish counts a few verbs with the same unexpected derivation: gniid, do.slí… The
solution of the problem could be found through Ancient Greek ῥέζω to do, make (*< secondary
metathesized full-grade *wrégȳ > rhéz̄, rhéddo ). A sonorant metathesis of the full-grade *wreg- also
ga e the B itto i e to do ut better, it can perfectly match with OIr verbs quoted above  cf.
Celtic *gnéHye/o, *sléHye/o, with loss of laryngeal before *y (from PIE roots *genhe eget , *genho
k o , *selH take, size ). OIr. tlenaid could be explained too by a metathesis + nasal infix refection,
and ar.a.crin f o oot ke H fall  ake fall, ause to fall, shake + -iterative  decay, perish and
the t e li g de i ati es .
(3) The OIr. verbs quoted above have a C(R)eRHXI root shape and perfective aspect. They share another
similarity: a intricate preterit construction. They combine reduplication and s-aorist or possess both
perfect and aorist. This abnormal situation indicates a late refection. Due to those peculiarities, other
parts of their conjugation could have undergone morphological renewals or discrepancies; the OIr. a-
subjunctive may owe its origin from those verbs.
Old Irish possesses a class of seṭ verbs ending by a resonant that makes its present in infixing a nasal
(na-present); they form the class IV of Thurneysen or the S3 of McCone. Their shapes are CeRH, CReRH,
He‘H o H‘eH, ut all ha e - eso a t efo e the laryngeal (e.g. benaid, crenaid, im.fen, lenaid). They
all follo the o al patte of the verbal system, in particular the reduplicated perfect. And so,
their a-subjunctive could potentially arises from s-aorist (eyHs+ athematic endings  *-eyas- and later
thematic refection?). But a set of verbs (most of them belonging to class V of Thurneysen) could not
share this origin: those with other resonant tha , including their aniṭ counterpart (given that in this
context the laryngeal is lost in Celtic before the thematic vowel and that the two categories have
mixed). As the preterit already mobilized the s-aorist, it ould t e used su ju ti e e en a
thematic s-aorist). The athematic e-grade type thus fulfilled the role and then was extended (or
merged with the former class).

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 To conclude
Despite the difficulties to understand the verbal morphology of Gaulish, what we know at present
allows us to tentatively reconstruct a Common Celtic verbal system which can explain some
peculiarities of the Insular Celtic languages. The impersonal and the deponent conjugation of Old Irish
could find its origin in a large reshaping of the PIE verbal system, in which Gaulish offers a first stage
of development.

FOOT NOTES
I
Definition of deponency (Grestenberger, p.107):
In an active—non-active voice system, a deponent is a verb with an agent subject which appears in a
syntactically active context and is morphologically non-active .
II
It is probably at the origin of middle-passive primary endings in -r, though apparently also used as impersonal
mark within the active voice. Perfect has only distinct endings from the middle in the 3sg. and 3pl.
III
-ēr would be a static 3rd pl ending of the perfect, opposed to -r in a mobile inflection (Beekes, p.238)
IV
…the preterital force of the originally middle endings combined with the durativity or open-endedness to
create an active imperfect i Griffith A., Old Irish denominal and deadjectival deponents, 2010, p.6
V
Cross-linguistic research suggests that stative predicates in general tend to take non-active morphology in
bivalent voice systems (see Kemmer 1993 and Zombolou and Alexiadou 2014a on Modern Greek) and that this
should be considered one of the canonical syntactic contexts which license non-active morphology
(Grestenberger, p.101)
VI
The deponent behavior of this root is amply attested in Indo-European (Grestenberger, p.118)
VII
1b3 NONUS CO ETIC DILIGENTI R[…]
1b4 ULATIO·NICN OM AUCITIONIM (DLG)
VIII
7. (LUNGETU) TON-ID PONC NITIXSINTOR SI[ES] (DLG)
IX
P.103: Canonical functions of non-active morphology:
a. Anti-causatives
b. Reflexives and reciprocals, including indirect reflexives (self-benefactives)
c. Dispositional/generic constructions
d. (Medio)passives
X
-ēr had probably originally no lengthening or distinction of singular vs. plural.
XI
where C stands for any stop or s, R stands for any resonant, H stands for any laryngeal

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