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Contemporary Linguistics and Indo-European Studies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 2020

W. P. Lehmann
W. P. Lehmann*
Affiliation:
University of Texas, Austin
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Abstract

Recent linguistic studies, particularly the extension of structural analysis to the syntactic component of language and improved typological analysis, have made possible an increased understanding of Proto-Indo-European and the early Indo-European dialects. The new insights permit us to account for syntactic constructions such as the placement of relative clauses, adjectives, and genitives; the use of prepositions in VO, postpositions in OV languages; comparative constructions of the order STANDARD PIVOT ADJECTIVE in OV, ADJECTIVE PIVOT STANDARD in VO languages. As an illustration of a further pattern which can now be explained, the absolutes in the early dialects are examined, and accounted for as constructions that may arise in ambivalent languages. Besides contributing to an understanding of syntactic phenomena, current linguistic theory assists us in achieving further knowledge about Proto-Indo-European and further insights into the development of the Indo-European languages.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 87 , Issue 5 , October 1972 , pp. 976 - 993
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1972

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References

1 Hermann Hirt ascribed the lack of interest in syntax to the absence of explanations for many phenomena, Handbuch des Urgermanischen, in (Heidelberg: Winter 1934), vi. The standard work on transformational syntax is Noam Chomsky's Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, 1965). Scholars who have not concerned themselves in detail with work in transformational grammar, its development and relation to other linguistic work, may find their readiest access in John Lyons' Noam Chomsky (New York: Viking, 1970).

2 Howard Eves, A Survey of Geometry, ii (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1965), 145.

3 Saussure's monograph is most readily available in Recueil des publications scientifiques (Genève: Droz, 1921); see esp. p. 174. His general views on language were published in Cours de linguistique générale (1916; rpt. Paris: Payot, 1949), of which a translation Course in General Linguistics was made by Wade Baskin (New York: Philosophical Library, 1959).

4 Leonard Bloomfield, Language (New York: Holt, 1933), p. 11. For an article interpreting Panini's treatment of nouns with reference to case grammars, see H. M. Ananthanarayana, “The Karaka Theory and Case Grammar,” Indian Linguistics, 31 (1970), 14–27. A clear treatment of case grammar has been given by Charles J. Fillmore, “The Case for Case,” in Unicersals in Linguistic Theory, ed. Emmon W. Bach and Robert T. Harms (New York: Holt, 1968), pp. 1–88. Remarkable support for the hypothesis that the verb is the central constituent of sentences has been provided by research on patients with bisected brains; experiments have shown that only the hemisphere with the speech center can handle verbs. See my Descriptive Linguistics (New York: Random, 1972), pp. 105–06.

6 Antoine Meillet, The Comparative Method in Historical Linguistics, trans. Gordon B. Ford, Jr. (Paris: Champion, 1967), distinguishes basically between comparison to derive “universal laws” and comparison to derive “historical information.” Edward Sapir, Language (New York: Harcourt, 1921), devotes about two-fifths of his book to typological analysis and classification. The major article dealing with syntactic factors is “Some Universals of Grammar with Particular Reference to the Order of Meaningful Elements.” by Joseph H. Greenberg, in Universals of Language, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1966), pp. 73–113.

6 The basic work for Indo-European syntax is Berthold Delbrück's portion of the Karl Brugmann and Berthold Delbrück Grundriss der vergleichenden Grammatik der indogernanischen Sprachen, iii-v (Strassburg: Triibner, 1893–1900), now rpt. by Walter de Gruyter. Ferdinand Sommer, Vergleichende Grammatik der Schulsprachen, 4th ed. (Darmstadt: Wiss. Buchhandlung, 1959), pp. 118–21, discusses word order. C. Watkins presented a compact statement of Proto-Indo-European word order in “Preliminaries to the Reconstruction of Indo-European Sentence Structure,” in Proceedings of the Ninth International Congress of Linguists, ed. Horace G. Lunt (The Hague: Mouton, 1964), pp. 1035–42. J. F. Staal, Word Order in Sanskrit and Universal Grammar (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1967), discusses the free word order of Classical Sanskrit.

7 A comprehensive discussion of the methods of formation of the comparative is found in Karl Brugmann, Grundriss der vergleichenden Grammatik der indogermanischen Sprachen, 2.1 (Strassburg: Triibner, 1906), pp. 323–29 and 547–62.

8 E. V. Arnold. Vedic Metre in Its Historical Development (Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1905), presents the data on the basis of which he determined various structures of hymns in the Rigveda. B. Delbriick, Altindische Syntax (1888; rpt. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche, 1968), is still the most comprehensive syntactic treatment of Vedic syntax.

9 For these and other patterns of Hittite syntax see J. Friedrich, Hethitisches Elementarbuch, 2nd ed., i (Heidelberg: Winter 1960).

10 The story has been excellently edited in Mur'silis Sprachlahmung by Albrecht Götze and Holger Pedersen (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1934).

11 F. Klaeber, Beowulf, 3rd ed. (Boston: Heath, 1950), p. xciv.

12 C. F. Voegelin, “Casual and Non-casual Utterances within Unified Structure,” in Style in Language, ed. Thomas A. Sebeok (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1960), pp. 57–68.

13 Morgan Callaway, Jr., Studies in the Syntax of the L'mdisfarne Gospels (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins Press, 1918), p. 1. The Latin examples have been taken from William Gardner Hale and Carl Darling Buck, A Latin Grammar (1903; rpt. University: Univ. of Alabama Press, 1966), pp. 220–21.

14 Karl Brugmann, Grundriss 2.3.2 (1916), pp. 960–68. Antoine Meillet and J. Vendryes, Traité de grammaire comparée des langues classiques, 2nd ed. (Paris: Champion, 1953), pp. 617–22.

15 Grundriss 2.3.2 (1916), pp. 964–65. Jacob Wackernagel, Vorlesungen über Syntax. Erste Reihe, 2nd ed. (Basel: Birkhäuser, 1926), p. 292.

16 Otto Behaghel, Der Gebrauch der Zeitformen (Pader-born: Schöningh, 1899), p. 1, repeats this statement with further comment. John Lyons, Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics (Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1968), pp. 388–99.

17 B. Delbriick, Altindische Syntax, pp. 113, 188–96.

18 Hale and Buck, A Latin Grammar, p. 340.

19 W. P. Lehmann, “The Nordic Languages: Lasting Linguistic Contributions of the Past,” in The Nordic Languages and Modern Linguistics, ed. Hreinn Benediktsson (Reykjavík: Visindafélag Íslandinga, 1970), pp. 286–305.

20 Rüdiger Schmitt, Dichtung und Dichtersprache in indogermanischer Zeit (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1967), contains copious references, including a comment on Roman Jakobson's views, pp. 311–12.

21 Eduard Sievers, Altgermanische Metrik (Halle: Nie-meyer, 1893), esp. p. 176.

22 W. P. Lehmann, The Development of Germanic Verse Forms (1956; rpt. New York: Gordian Press, 1971), esp. pp. 64–123.

23 The readiest access to the data linking Kartvelian and Proto-Indo-European is found in Thomas V. Gamkrelidze, “A Typology of Common Kartvelian,” Language, 42 (1966), 69–83. For a recent introduction to Indo-European studies, see Oswald Szemerényi, Einführung in die vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche, 1970). For some of the archeological evidence, see Paul Friedrich, Proto-Indo-European Trees (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1970); and Indo-European and Indo-Europeans, ed. George Cardona, Henry M. Hoenigswald, and Alfred Senn (Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1970).

24 This article was completed when the author was being supported by Contract F 30602–70-Q-0146 of the Rome Air Development Center. I am also grateful to Solveig Pflueger, who is supported by NSF Grant GS-3081, to Michael Brame, Ram Prakash Dixit, Eric Hamp, and Ruth Lehmann. In addition, I would like to acknowledge discussions with Raja Rao and George Sudarshan on some of the problems presented here.