A single origin of Indo-European primary adpositions?: Unveiling the Indo-Aryan branch-off
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Uta Reinöhl [1]
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[1] University of Cologne
University of Cologne
Kreisfreie Stadt Köln, Alemania
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- Localización: Diachronica: International Journal for Historical Linguistics = Revue Internationale pour la Linguistique Historique = Internationale Zeitschrift für Historische Sprachwissenschaft, ISSN 0176-4225, Vol. 33, Nº 1, 2016, págs. 95-130
- Idioma: inglés
- Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
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Resumen
It has been widely assumed that the primary adpositions of modern Indo-European languages constitute a historically identical category, descending from the Proto-Indo-European ‘local particles’. I argue that this assumption needs to be revised, because a major branch of the language family, Indo-Aryan, possesses adpositions of unrelated origin. This is not only a question of different etyma, but the New Indo-Aryan adpositions descend from structurally different sources. The ancient local particles, as attested in early Indo-Aryan varieties, combine with local case forms and show a preference for the prenominal position. By contrast, the New Indo-Aryan adpositions descend from nominal and verbal forms heading genitives, and show a propensity for the postnominal slot. Thus, we are dealing with elements unrelated not only etymologically, but also with regard to their morphosyntactic distribution.
