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The Formation of the Tocharian Subjunctive

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

George S. Lane
George S. Lane*
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina
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Extract

A generation or two ago the writers of handbooks of Indo-European comparative grammar were for the most part considerably more definite in their conclusions regarding the form of the parent speech than their successors are today. This is particularly true with regard to the verbal system. In those days the repertoire of verb categories was based largely on the agreements between Greek and Sanskrit, some of which were indeed striking, and the deviations of the other Indo-European languages were explained as developing out of that skeletal system, or as innovations, or were left without explanation.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 35 , Issue 2-Part1: April-June , June 1959, pp. 157 - 179
Copyright
Copyright © 1959 by Linguistic Society of America

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References

1 I should like to thank my colleagues in the University of Oslo who attended my seminar on Tocharian during the winter of 1957-58. Many of the ideas here presented, possibly most of them, were exposed there first. The inspiration and the sound counsel I received in that seminar from Professors Borgstrøm, Morgenstierne, Sommerfelt, and Stang has not, I hope, been entirely wasted.

2 Cf. also the similar remarks by Stang, Das slavische und baltische Verbum 7 ff. (1942).

3 Cf. Holger Pedersen, Tocharisch vom Gesichtspunkt der indoeuropäischen Sprachvergleichung 191 f.

4 E. Adelaide Hahn, Subjunctive and optative: Their origin as futures (1953).

5 I use the term ‘subjunctive’ in Tocharian for those forms which Sieg and Siegling in their Tocharische Grammatik and Wolfgang Krause in his Westtocharische Grammatik I call by that name. I do not mean to exclude the possibility that some other name may be more appropriate—even that a difference in aspect or ‘Aktionsart’ may better describe the relation between the two formal categories here.

6 I am, of course, indebted for most such counts to Krause, WTG I, under the proper subjunctive. Not infrequently, however, my figures differ from his because of inclusion of some particular subjunctive or indicative as a different formation.

7 Holger Pedersen, Hittitisch und die andern indoeuropäischen Sprachen 80 ff. (1938); Sturtevant, Comp. Hitt. gram. 2132 (1951). This is of course denied by Kronasser, Vgl. Lautund Formenlehre des Heth. 188 ff. (1956).

8 Cf. Krause, WTG 1.30. Here it is assumed, however, that the use as a future developed from the modal value. An affirmative answer to my query requires the reverse.

9 The connection with Gk. oíphō, OCS jebati, Skt. yabhati ‘futuo’ made by Van Windekens Lex. etym. 171 (and followed by Poucha in his Thesaurus) is surely to be rejected.

10 Sturtevant, op. cit. 144.

10a If Skt. gamati is itself subj. rather than indicative, we have a complete parallel to the Tocharian forms. Cf. Warren Cowgill, Lg. 35.91 with footnotes and references.

11 The use here of ‘ā-subjunctive’ and ‘ā-preterit’ (with the macron) ignores the alternation between ‘long’ ā and ‘short’ ă in A and the fluctuation between the two in B, since, as the discussion intends to show, this distinction is secondary.

12 Cf. Buck, A grammar of Oscan and Umbrian 161 f.; Comp. gram, of Greek and Latin 268.

13 BB 17.50 ftn.

14 IF 2.193 ff.

15 Except for the athematic present imamĭ, intaši, imatŭ, etc., to inf. iměti ‘have’. Cf. Stang, Das slav. u. bolt. Verbum 22 f.

16 Cf. Vondrak, Vgl. slav. Gram. 2.197 ff.; Hirt, Idg. Gram. 4.225 ff., Stang, op.cit. 75 ff.

17 The word ‘preterit’ is used here in order to avoid the designation of the tense as either imperfect or aorist.

18 Cf. Whitney, Roots s.v. 1 drā.

18a Cf. Brugmann, Grundriss 2 2.3.163.

19 Cf. Origines de la formation des noms en indo-européen 147 ff.

20 Cf. Pedersen, Toch. 183 ff.; Brugmann, Grundr.2 2.3.89.

21 Pedersen, op.cit. 185 f.; Brugmann, op.cit. 149 ff.

22 The ś(ś) for ṣṣ is puzzling, however. Contamination of *päknśṣṣitśr from pres, stem with an original *päśitär? Cf. also SSS 361 ftn. 1.