The ''Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben'' (''LIV'', ''"Lexicon of the Indo-European Verbs"'') is an
etymological dictionary
An etymological dictionary discusses the etymology of the words listed. Often, large dictionaries, such as the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' and ''Webster's'', will contain some etymological information, without aspiring to focus on etymology.
E ...
of the
Proto-Indo-European
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) verb. The first edition appeared in 1998, edited by
Helmut Rix
Helmut Rix (4 July 1926, in Amberg – 3 December 2004, in Colmar) was a German linguist and professor of the Sprachwissenschaftliches Seminar of Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, Freiburg, Germany.
He is best known for his research into Indo-Euro ...
. A second edition followed in 2001. The book may be seen as an update to the verb entries of the ''
Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch
The ''Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch'' (''IEW''; "Indo-European Etymological Dictionary") was published in 1959 by the Austrian-German comparative linguist and Celtic languages expert Julius Pokorny. It is an updated and slimmed-down ...
'' (''IEW'') by
Julius Pokorny
Julius Pokorny (12 June 1887 – 8 April 1970) was an Austrian-Czech linguist and scholar of the Celtic languages, particularly Irish, and a supporter of Irish nationalism. He held academic posts in Austrian and German universities.
Early life a ...
. It was the first dictionary fully utilizing the modern three-
laryngeal theory
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 ...
with reconstructions of Indo-European verbal roots.
The ''LIVs hypothesis about aspect
The authors of the ''LIV'' assume a dichotomy between ''
telic
Telic may refer to:
*Grammatically, indicating telicity
*A central argument of Teleology says that the world has clearly been constructed in a purposeful telic rather than a chaotic manner, and must therefore have been made by a rational being, i.e ...
'' verbs (terminated: for example, 'to light up') and ''atelic'' verbs (ongoing: for example, 'to shine') in early stages of Proto-Indo-European. Before the
daughter language
In historical linguistics, a daughter language, also known as descendant language, is a language descended from another language, its mother language, through a process of genetic descent. If more than one language has developed from the same pro ...
s split off,
''aspect'' emerged as a new grammatical category.
Telic verbs were interpreted as
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 I ...
forms, and the missing
present
The present (or here'' and ''now) is the time that is associated with the events perception, perceived directly and in the first time, not as a recollection (perceived more than once) or a speculation (predicted, hypothesis, uncertain). It is ...
was formed with various suffixes (for example, ) and the
nasal infix
The nasal infix is a reconstructed nasal consonant or syllable that was inserted ( infixed) into the stem or root of a word in the Proto-Indo-European language. It has reflexes in several ancient and modern Indo-European languages. It is one of t ...
(), all of which are supposed to come from old grammatical forms of uncertain meaning.
Atelic verbs were interpreted as present forms, and the missing aorist was formed with the suffix ''-s-'', yielding the
sigma
Sigma (; uppercase Σ, lowercase σ, lowercase in word-final position ς; grc-gre, σίγμα) is the eighteenth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 200. In general mathematics, uppercase Σ is used as ...
tic aorist.
This hypothesis is used to explain various phenomena:
*Some verbs in Indo-European languages form root presents (
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
'I pull, I lead', from
PIE
A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients. Sweet pies may be filled with fruit (as in an apple pie), nuts ( pecan pie), brown sugar ( sugar pie), swe ...
) and derived sigmatic aorists (
perfect forms in Latin: 'I have pulled, I have led', pronounced ''dūksī'', from ).
*Other verbs form root aorists (Latin 'I have won', pronounced ''wīkī'', from ) and derived present forms ( 'I win', from , with nasal infix).
*For many PIE verbs, various present forms can be reconstructed without discernible differences in meaning (like and above, both forms have attested reflexes in IE languages:
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 ...
'I shine' and
Proto-Celtic
Proto-Celtic, or Common Celtic, is the ancestral proto-language of all known Celtic languages, and a descendant of Proto-Indo-European. It is not attested in writing but has been partly Linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed through the compar ...
'to shine, burn', respectively).
In addition to the present and the aorist, the following aspects are assumed:
*
Perfect
*
Causative
In linguistics, a causative (abbreviated ) is a valency-increasing operationPayne, Thomas E. (1997). Describing morphosyntax: A guide for field linguists'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 173–186. that indicates that a subject either ...
-Iterative
*
Desiderative
In linguistics, a desiderative (abbreviated or ) form is one that has the meaning of "wanting to X". Desiderative forms are often verbs, derived from a more basic verb through a process of morphological derivation. Desiderative mood is a kind of ...
*Intensive (repetition)
*Fientive (onset of a new state)
*Essive (persistent state)
Entries
The lexical part contains for each verbal root
*the conjectured meaning,
*reconstructed stems with their reflexes in the daughter languages,
*extensive footnotes (with references, remarks on alternative and dubious reconstructions, etc.),
*the page number of the corresponding ''IEW'' entry.
Indices
The book includes
*a regressive root index,
*an index of reconstructed primary stems, sorted by aspect and formation rule,
*an index of reflexes in the daughter languages, sorted by language.
Reception and criticism
*Seebold claims insufficient evidence for roots reconstructed from a single daughter language. Helmut Rix insists in the preface to the second edition that the assessment of the evidence should be left to the reader.
*Seebold also criticises some of the conjectured meanings. Rix calls this criticism ''basically legitimate''.
*Meier-Brügger tentatively calls the ''LIVs aspect hypothesis “adequate and capable of consensus” (), without agreeing on all of the details of the analysis.
*Fortson calls the ''LIV'' “
ry useful and up-to-date – though in various places controversial”, but does not elaborate on the controversial places.
*Ringe
states that the theories in Rix (what he terms the “Cowgill-Rix verb”) largely reflect current consensus, but implies that some of his phonological reconstructions may go beyond the consensus (in terms of being insufficiently “conservative”).
See also
*
Proto-Indo-European verb
Proto-Indo-European verbs reflect a complex system of morphology, more complicated than the substantive, with verbs categorized according to their aspect, using multiple grammatical moods and voices, and being conjugated according to person, nu ...
Other PIE dictionaries and grammars
* ''
'' (published 1886–1916 by
Karl Brugmann
Karl Brugmann (16 March 1849 – 29 June 1919) was a German linguist. He is noted for his work in Indo-European linguistics.
Biography
He was educated at the universities of Halle and Leipzig. He taught at the gymnasium at Wiesbaden and at Le ...
and
Berthold Delbrück
Berthold Gustav Gottlieb Delbrück (; 26 July 1842 – 3 January 1922) was a German linguist who devoted himself to the study of the comparative syntax of the Indo-European languages.
Early life
Delbrück was born in Putbus. He studied at the un ...
)
* ''
Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch
The ''Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch'' (''IEW''; "Indo-European Etymological Dictionary") was published in 1959 by the Austrian-German comparative linguist and Celtic languages expert Julius Pokorny. It is an updated and slimmed-down ...
'' (''IEW'', first published 1956 by
Julius Pokorny
Julius Pokorny (12 June 1887 – 8 April 1970) was an Austrian-Czech linguist and scholar of the Celtic languages, particularly Irish, and a supporter of Irish nationalism. He held academic posts in Austrian and German universities.
Early life a ...
), with reconstructions pre-dating the
laryngeal theory
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 ...
* ''
Indo-European Etymological Dictionary
The ''Indo-European Etymological Dictionary'' (commonly abbreviated ''IEED'') is a research project of the Department of Comparative Indo-European Linguistics at Leiden University, initiated in 1991 by Peter Schrijver and others. It is financially ...
'', an ongoing project based in
Leiden
Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration wit ...
, intended to result in the publication of a comprehensive Indo-European etymological dictionary
* ''
Nomina im Indogermanischen Lexikon
''Nomina im Indogermanischen Lexikon'' (''NIL'', ''"Nominals in the Indo-European Lexicon"'') is an etymological dictionary of the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) nominals, that is, nouns and adjectives. It appeared in 2008, edited by German linguists ...
'' (NIL), structured similarly to the ''LIV'' and treating PIE nouns and adjectives
* ''
Lexikon der indogermanischen Partikeln und Pronominalstämme
The ''Lexikon der indogermanischen Partikeln und Pronominalstämme'' (''LIPP'', ''"Lexicon of the Indo-European Particles and Pronominal Stems"'') is an etymological dictionary of the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) particles and pronouns, published in ...
'' (LIPP), structured similarly to the ''LIV'' and treating PIE particles and pronouns.
References
External links
*''Addenda und Corrigenda zu LIV²''
HTMLo
PDF Latest update: 3 Feb. 2015.
(University of Texas)
(based on the ''IEW'' and including laryngeal-based reconstructions, but only as alternative lemmas with cross references to the pre-laryngeal ones)
{{Proto-Indo-European language
1998 non-fiction books
Indo-European linguistics works
Etymological dictionaries