The

particles In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscle in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass. They vary greatly in size or quantity, from s ...

of the

Proto-Indo-European language 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-Eu ...

(PIE) have been reconstructed by modern linguists based on similarities found across all

Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...

Adverbs

Adverbs used as adpositions

Many particles could be used both as

adverb An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, an adjective, another adverb, a determiner, a clause, a preposition, or a sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, or level of certainty by ...

s and

postposition Adpositions are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in, under, towards, behind, ago'', etc.) or mark various semantic roles (''of, for''). The most common adpositions are prepositions (which precede their complemen ...

s. This is similar to modern languages; compare English ''He is above in the attic'' (adverb) and ''The bird is above the house'' (preposition). The postpositions became prepositions in the daughter languages except Anatolian, Indo-Iranian and

Sabellic The Osco-Umbrian, Sabellic or Sabellian languages are an extinct group of Italic languages, the Indo-European languages that were spoken in central and southern Italy by the Osco-Umbrians before being replaced by Latin, as the power of ancient Rom ...

; some of the other branches such as

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

and

Greek Greek may refer to: 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 of all kno ...

preserve postpositions vestigially.

Reflexes In biology, a reflex, or reflex action, is an involuntary, unplanned sequence or action and nearly instantaneous response to a Stimulus (physiology), stimulus. Reflexes are found with varying levels of complexity in organisms with a nervous s ...

, or descendants of the PIE reconstructed forms in its daughter languages, include the following. Untranslated reflexes have the same meaning as the PIE word. In the following languages, two reflexes separated by a slash mean: *English:

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

Modern English Modern English, sometimes called New English (NE) or present-day English (PDE) as opposed to Middle and Old English, is the form of the English language that has been spoken since the Great Vowel Shift in England England is a Count ...

*German:

Old High German Old High German (OHG; ) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally identified as the period from around 500/750 to 1050. Rather than representing a single supra-regional form of German, Old High German encompasses the numerous ...

New High German New High German (NHG; ) is the term used for the most recent period in the history of the German language, starting in the 17th century. It is a loan translation of the German (). The most important characteristic of the period is the developme ...

*Irish:

Old Irish Old Irish, also called Old Gaelic (, Ogham, Ogham script: ᚌᚑᚔᚇᚓᚂᚉ; ; ; or ), is the oldest form of the Goidelic languages, Goidelic/Gaelic language for which there are extensive written texts. It was used from 600 to 900. The ...

Modern Irish Irish (Standard Irish: ), also known as Irish Gaelic or simply Gaelic ( ), is a Celtic language of the Indo-European language family. It is a member of the Goidelic languages of the Insular Celtic sub branch of the family and is indigenous ...

*Persian:

Old Persian Old Persian is one of two directly attested Old Iranian languages (the other being Avestan) and is the ancestor of Middle Persian (the language of the Sasanian Empire). Like other Old Iranian languages, it was known to its native speakers as (I ...

Modern Persian New Persian (), also known as Modern Persian () is the current stage of the Persian language spoken since the 8th to 9th centuries until now in Greater Iran and surroundings. It is conventionally divided into three stages: Early New Persian (8th/ ...

*Tocharian:

Tocharian A Tocharian A, also known as Tokharian A, Eastern Tocharian, Agnean (), Karashahrian or Turfanian is a dead language that was in use in the 1st millennium AD in the Karashahr and Turpan, Turfan region of the Tarim Basin, present-day Xinjiang, West ...

Tocharian B Tocharian B (also known as Kuchean or West Tocharian) was a Western member of the Tocharian branch of Indo-European languages, extinct from the ninth century. Once spoken in the Tarim Basin The Tarim Basin is an endorheic basin in Xinjiang, N ...

Negating prefixes (privatives)

Two

privative A privative, named from Latin language, Latin , is a particle (grammar), particle that negates or inverts the semantics, value of the root word, stem of the word. In Indo-European languages, many privatives are prefix (linguistics), prefixes, bu ...

s can be reconstructed, and , the latter only used for negative commands. The privative prefix is likely the

zero grade In linguistics, the Indo-European ablaut ( , from German ) is a system of apophony (regular vowel variations) in the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE). An example of ablaut in English is the strong verb ''sing, sang, sung'' and its relate ...

of .

Adverbs derived from adjectives

Adverbs derived from adjectives (like English ''bold-ly'', ''beautiful-ly'') arguably cannot be classified as particles. In Proto-Indo-European, these are simply case forms of adjectives and thus better classified as

nouns In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing, like living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. A noun may serve as an object or subject within a phrase, clause, or sentence.Example n ...

. An example is "greatly", a nominative-accusative singular.

Conjunctions

The following conjunctions can be reconstructed: ^†Placed after the joined word, as in Latin ("Senate and people of Rome"), joining and .

Interjections

There is only one PIE

interjection An interjection is a word or expression that occurs as an utterance on its own and expresses a spontaneous feeling, situation or reaction. It is a diverse category, with many different types, such as exclamations ''(ouch!'', ''wow!''), curses (''da ...

that can be securely reconstructed; the second is uncertain.

Notes

References

* *Kloekhorst, Alwin "The Hittite Inherited Lexicon Volume II" (Online: Leiden University, 2007) * {{DEFAULTSORT:Proto-Indo-European Particle

Particle In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscle in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass. They vary greatly in size or quantity, from s ...

Parts of speech