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Grammar Of The Vedic Language
Vedic Sanskrit is the name given by modern scholarship to the oldest attested descendant of the Proto-Indo-Aryan language. Sanskrit is the language that is found in the four Vedas, in particular, the Rigveda, the oldest of them, dated to have been composed roughly over the period from 1500 to 1000 BCE. Before its standardization as Sanskrit, the Vedic language was a purely spoken language during that period used before the introduction of writing in the language. The Vedic language has inherited from its ultimate-parent (the Proto-Indo-European language) an elaborate system of morphology, more of which has been preserved in Sanskrit as a whole than in other kindred languages such as Ancient Greek or Latin. Its grammar differs greatly from the later Classical Sanskrit in many regards, one being that this complex inherited morphology simplified over time. History The language descended from the Proto-Indo-Aryan language, which entered the Indian subcontinent with the arrival of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vedic Sanskrit
Vedic Sanskrit, also simply referred as the Vedic language, is the most ancient known precursor to Sanskrit, a language in the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan subgroup of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. It is attested in the Vedas and related literature compiled over the period of the mid-2nd millennium BCE, 2nd to mid-1st millennium BCE. It is oral tradition, orally preserved, predating the advent of writing by several centuries. Extensive ancient literature in the Vedic Sanskrit language has survived into the modern era, and this has been a major source of information for reconstructing Proto-Indo-European language, Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Indo-Iranian language, Proto-Indo-Iranian history. History Prehistoric derivation The separation of Proto-Indo-Iranian language into Proto-Iranian and Proto-Indo-Aryan language, Proto-Indo-Aryan is estimated, on linguistic grounds, to have occurred around or before 1800 BCE. The date of composition of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. No direct record of Proto-Indo-European exists; its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. Far more work has gone into reconstructing PIE than any other proto-language, and it is the best understood of all proto-languages of its age. The majority of linguistic work during the 19th century was devoted to the reconstruction of PIE and its daughter languages, and many of the modern techniques of linguistic reconstruction (such as the comparative method) were developed as a result. PIE is hypothesized to have been spoken as a single language from approximately 4500 BCE to 2500 BCE during the Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age, though estimates vary by more than a thousand years. According to the prevailing Kurgan hypothesis, the proto-Indo-European homeland, original homeland of the Proto-Indo-Europeans may ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agreement (linguistics)
In linguistics, agreement or concord ( abbreviated ) occurs when a word changes form depending on the other words to which it relates. It is an instance of inflection, and usually involves making the value of some grammatical category (such as gender or person) "agree" between varied words or parts of the sentence. For example, in Standard English, one may say ''I am'' or ''he is'', but not "I is" or "he am". This is because English grammar requires that the verb and its subject agree in ''person''. The pronouns ''I'' and ''he'' are first and third person respectively, as are the verb forms ''am'' and ''is''. The verb form must be selected so that it has the same person as the subject in contrast to notional agreement, which is based on meaning. By category Agreement generally involves matching the value of some grammatical category between different constituents of a sentence (or sometimes between sentences, as in some cases where a pronoun is required to agree with its ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books by decree in 1586. It is the second-oldest university press after Cambridge University Press, which was founded in 1534. It is a department of the University of Oxford. It is governed by a group of 15 academics, the Delegates of the Press, appointed by the Vice Chancellor, vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford. The Delegates of the Press are led by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as OUP's chief executive and as its major representative on other university bodies. Oxford University Press has had a similar governance structure since the 17th century. The press is located on Walton Street, Oxford, Walton Street, Oxford, opposite Somerville College, Oxford, Somerville College, in the inner suburb of Jericho, Oxford, Jericho. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andrew Sihler
Andrew Littleton Sihler (born 25 February 1941 in Seattle) is an American linguist and comparative Indo-Europeanist. Biography Sihler received his Bachelor of Arts ''cum laude'' in 1962 from Harvard College, where he studied Germanic languages, literature, and linguistics. He earned his Master of Arts from Yale in 1965. Taking his doctorate in 1967, Sihler trained in general linguistics but with a concentration in historical-comparative linguistics — Indo-European in particular — studying under Warren Cowgill and Stanley Insler, among others. Upon graduation, he joined the faculty of the Department of Linguistics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, from which he retired in the spring of 1999. Sihler has contributed to Indo-European linguistics by showing that Edgerton's Law (an extension of Sievers' Law) is untenable when all the evidence is taken into account. In addition, he has written a comparative grammar of Greek and Latin intended to replace the one w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Syncretism (linguistics)
In linguistics, syncretism exists when functionally distinct occurrences of a single lexeme, morph or phone are identical in form. The term arose in historical linguistics, referring to the convergence of morphological forms within inflectional paradigms. In such cases, a former distinction has been "syncretized". However, syncretism is also used to describe any situation where multiple syntactical features share the same inflectional marker, without implying a distinction ever existed. The term ''syncretism'' is often used when a fairly regular pattern can be observed across a paradigm. Syncretism is a specific form of linguistic homophony. Homophony refers to any instance of two words or morphemes with the same pronunciation (form) but different meaning. Syncretism is a type of homophony that occurs within a specific paradigm in which the syntax would require separate forms. Accidental homophony does occur in paradigms, however, and linguist Sebastian Bank of the University o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Declension
In linguistics, declension (verb: ''to decline'') is the changing of the form of a word, generally to express its syntactic function in the sentence by way of an inflection. Declension may apply to nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and determiners. It serves to indicate grammatical number, number (e.g. singular, dual, plural), grammatical case, case (e.g. nominative case, nominative, accusative case, accusative, genitive case, genitive, or dative case, dative), grammatical gender, gender (e.g. masculine, feminine, or neuter), and a number of other grammatical categories. Inflectional change of verbs is called Grammatical conjugation, conjugation. Declension occurs in many languages. It is an important aspect of language families like Quechuan languages, Quechuan (i.e., languages native to the Andes), Indo-European languages, Indo-European (e.g. German language, German, Icelandic language, Icelandic, Irish language, Irish, Baltic language, Lithuanian and Latvian, Slavic lang ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Infinitive
Infinitive ( abbreviated ) is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs that do not show a tense. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all languages. The name is derived from Late Latin [] , a derivative of meaning "unlimited". In traditional descriptions of English language, English, the infinitive is the basic dictionary form of a verb when used non-finitely, with or without the particle to. Thus to go is an infinitive, as is ''go'' in a sentence like "I must go there" (but not in "I go there", where it is a finite verb). The form without ''to'' is called the bare infinitive, and the form with ''to'' is called the full infinitive or to-infinitive. In many other languages the infinitive is a distinct single word, often with a characteristic inflective ending, like (" osing") in Portuguese, (" odie") in Spanish, (" oeat") in French, (" ocarry") in Latin and Ita ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Injunctive Mood
The injunctive mood is a grammatical mood in Sanskrit that was characterized by secondary endings but no augment, and usually looked like an augmentless aorist or imperfect. It typically stood in a main clause and had a subjunctive or imperative meaning; for example, it could indicate intention, e.g. "Indra's heroic deeds will/shall I now declaim". It was obligatory for use in prohibitions, where it follows . In later Classical Sanskrit, only the use after remained (there are no accents in Classical Sanskrit). Ancient Greek has words that are formally similar to the Sanskrit injunctive mood, consisting of aorist and imperfect forms lacking the augment. However, in this case there is no difference in meaning between these forms and the normal augmented forms. These are normally used in Homer and other epic poetry (see Homeric Greek Homeric Greek is the form of the Greek language that was used in the ''Iliad'', ''Odyssey'', and ''Homeric Hymns''. It is a literary dialect o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Subjunctive Mood
The subjunctive (also known as the conjunctive in some languages) is a grammatical mood, a feature of an utterance that indicates the speaker's attitude toward it. Subjunctive forms of verbs are typically used to express various states of unreality, such as wish, emotion, possibility, judgment, opinion, obligation, or action, that has not yet occurred. The precise situations in which they are used vary from language to language. The subjunctive is one of the irrealis moods, which refer to what is not necessarily real. It is often contrasted with the indicative, a realis mood which principally indicates that something is a statement of fact. Subjunctives occur most often, although not exclusively, in subordinate clauses, particularly ''that''-clauses. Examples of the subjunctive in English are found in the sentences "I suggest that you ''be'' careful" and "It is important that she ''stay'' by your side." Indo-European languages Proto-Indo-European The Proto-Indo-European lan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aorist
Aorist ( ; abbreviated ) verb forms usually express perfective aspect and refer to past events, similar to a preterite. Ancient Greek grammar had the aorist form, and the grammars of other Indo-European languages and languages influenced by the Indo-European grammatical tradition, such as Middle Persian, Sanskrit, Armenian, the South Slavic languages, Georgian, Pontic Greek, and Pashto, also have forms referred to as aorist. The word comes from Ancient Greek ( ), as the aorist was the unmarked (default) form of the verb, and thus did not have the implications of the imperfective aspect, which referred to an ongoing or repeated situation, or the perfect, which referred to a situation with a continuing relevance; instead it described an action "pure and simple". This does not mean, however, that the aorist was aspectually neutral, see Because the aorist was the unmarked aspect in Ancient Greek, the term is sometimes applied to unmarked verb forms in other languages, such as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Perfect (grammar)
The perfect tense or aspect ( abbreviated or ) is a verb form that indicates that an action or circumstance occurred earlier than the time under consideration, often focusing attention on the resulting state rather than on the occurrence itself. An example of a perfect construction is ''I have made dinner.'' Although this gives information about a prior action (the speaker's making of the dinner), the focus is likely to be on the present consequences of that action (the fact that the dinner is now ready). The word ''perfect'' in this sense means "completed" (from Latin ''perfectum'', which is the perfect passive participle of the verb ''perficere'' "to complete"). In traditional Latin and Ancient Greek grammar, the perfect tense is a particular, conjugated-verb form. Modern analyses view the perfect constructions of these languages as combining elements of grammatical tense (such as time reference) and grammatical aspect. The Greek perfect tense is contrasted with the aorist and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
