H₂e-conjugation theory
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The -conjugation theory adds a third
conjugation Conjugation or conjugate may refer to: Linguistics * Grammatical conjugation, the modification of a verb from its basic form * Emotive conjugation or Russell's conjugation, the use of loaded language Mathematics * Complex conjugation, the chang ...
to the two generally accepted conjugations of the
Proto-Indo-European language Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo-E ...
(PIE), the thematic and athematic conjugations. The symbol ' refers to a particular example of a class of sounds known as "
laryngeals The laryngeal theory is a theory in the historical linguistics of the Indo-European languages positing that: * The Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) had a series of phonemes beyond those reconstructable by the comparative method. That is, the ...
" in the theory of PIE linguistics.


History of the theory

Proposed by
Jay Jasanoff Jay Harold Jasanoff ( or ) is an American linguist and Indo-Europeanist, best known for his ''h2e''-conjugation theory of the Proto-Indo-European verbal system. He teaches Indo-European linguistics and historical linguistics at Harvard Universi ...
in 1979 and presented in its most elaborate form in Jasanoff (2003), the evidence for the "new" verbal conjugation in PIE is based on the attested existence of the similar ''ḫi''-conjugation in Hittite and other
Anatolian languages The Anatolian languages are an extinct branch of Indo-European languages that were spoken in Anatolia, part of present-day Turkey. The best known Anatolian language is Hittite, which is considered the earliest-attested Indo-European language. ...
. Whereas the
Anatolian Anatolian or anatolica may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the region Anatolia * Anatolians, ancient Indo-European peoples who spoke the Anatolian languages * Anatolian High School, a type of Turkish educational institution * Anatol ...
''ḫi''-conjugation has traditionally been seen as an innovation in the Anatolian branch of the
Indo-European family of languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the languages of Europe, overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English language, Englis ...
, Jasanoff presents evidence and arguments to place it as a conjugation already established in PIE proper.


The problem

The following table serves to give an understanding of the problem that the theory tries to solve. The origin of the Hittite ''mi''-conjugation (in the singular of the present indicative active) is not controversial. It can easily be identified as a descendant of the corresponding forms in the ancestral PIE language. The question is, where does the ''ḫi''-conjugation come from (represented in the table as question marks)? A very common solution (Eichner and others) has been to derive it from the PIE perfect. The second most common candidate has been the PIE middle (Rozenkranz, Kuryłowicz). (Why the PIE perfect and middle endings resemble each other so much is a major question in itself, and of course of great interest vis a vis the Hittite ''ḫi''-conjugation). Deriving the Hittite ''ḫi''-conjugation directly from the PIE thematic presents (like Couvreur did) involves huge problems, but that there is some connection seems very probable (in line with
Pedersen Pedersen () is a Danish and Norwegian patronymic surname, literally meaning "son of Peder". It is the fourth most common surname in Denmark, shared by about 3.4% of the population, and the sixth most common in Norway. It is of similar origin as th ...
and Watkins). All these three solutions, according to Jasanoff, present massive problems, not the least of which being that the way verbs are distributed between the two Hittite conjugations seems arbitrary, by and large, compared to the other PIE daughter languages. Even for this reason, it seems more probable that two categories serving one function have largely merged in the other languages (Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, etc.). Thus, the theory does not dispute that the present of the PIE 3rd conjugation is related to the traditional middle and perfect endings, it just moves the common ancestry back to a time before that of PIE proper. (The table is greatly simplified for the sake of presentation. The plural is omitted altogether because it presents significantly greater problems than the singular, as the "normal" forms were generalized from the Hittite mi-conjugation to the ḫi-conjugation, probably by analogy.)


Some new developments

In his thesis on Hittite,
Alwin Kloekhorst Alwin Kloekhorst (born in Smilde, 1978) is a Dutch linguist, Indo-Europeanist and Hittitologist. Biography Kloekhorst received his Ph.D. in 2007 at Leiden University for his thesis on Hittite. In over 1200 pages, his dissertation describes the ...
has argued that the ''ḫi''-conjugation of that language is virtually the same as the reconstructed perfect (or stative) of Proto-Indo-European, but without any
reduplication In linguistics, reduplication is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word (or part of it) or even the whole word is repeated exactly or with a slight change. The classic observation on the semantics of reduplication is Edwa ...
. In a more recent study, Olivier Simon argues that in the oldest stage of Proto-Indo-European, the active stative was unreduplicated (as in the Hittite ''ḫi''-conjugation or in the widely accepted reconstruction of ''*uoidh₂e'' = "I know") while the medio-passive was reduplicated (as shown by old
Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
and
Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
irregular perfects), and therefore unifies the Hittite ''ḫi''-conjugation with the Proto-Indo-European mainstream model.


References

* * * Alwin Kloekhorst (2007)
''The Hittite inherited lexicon''
Leiden University Centre for Linguistics, Faculty of Arts, Leiden University. * Olivier Simon (2015)
''Conséquences du non-marquage morphologique de la transitivité en Proto-Indo-Européen sur son système verbal.''
2.4.1. {{DEFAULTSORT:H pie E-Conjugation Theory Proto-Indo-European language Linguistic morphology