Multiple preverbs in ancient Indo-European languages: a comparative study on Vedic, Homeric Greek, Old Church Slavic and Old Irish

This thesis describes and analyzes multiple preverb composites in a sample of ancient Indo-European languages, including Vedic (R̥g-Veda), Homeric Greek (Iliad, Odyssey), Old Church Slavic (Codices Marianus, Zographensis, Suprasliensis), and Old Irish (Milan and Priscian Glosses). While preverbs and single preverbation are two well-studied topics in Indo-European linguistics, this is not the case for multiple preverb composites, whereby two or more such morphemes attach onto the same simplex verb (e.g. Ved. adhí ní √dhā- ‘over-down-put’ →‘deposit for’, Hom.Gr. ep-ana-títhēmi ‘on-upward-put’ → ‘shut’, OCS prědъ-po-lagati ‘in front of-along-lay’ → ‘distribute to’, OIr. do·aithchuiredar ‘to-back-put’ → ‘return’). After an introduction describing the aims of this work and the sample texts, the present thesis opens with a theoretical chapter devoted to the tools necessary to study preverbs (Cognitive Grammar, grammaticalization theory, semantic roles, aspect and actionality), and with a general and typological overview of preverbs. The thesis provides thereafter quantitative data as for the number of multiple preverb composites, multiple preverb combinations, and verbal roots modified by multiple preverbs. Moreover, it thoroughly carries out philological, formal, semantic, and syntactic analyses on multiple preverb composites. On the one hand, the results of such analyses deliver to us two similar scenarios for Vedic and Homeric Greek, whereby multiple preverbs still retain much of their original functions and syntactic behavior. By contrast, the grammaticalization and lexicalization paths are far more advanced in Old Church Slavic and in Old Irish. On the other hand, the comparison also points out a number of similarities among the developments undergone by multiple preverbs in the sample languages. Specifically, a process of ‘recomposition’ (i.e. step by step accumulation) most likely lies behind the formation of multiple preverb composites in all languages. In addition, preverb ordering can be similarly explained, based on an account integrating different kinds of factors: (a) semantic solidarity holding between preverbs and verbs; (b) preverbs’ tendency to be specified by further event participants; (c) specific etymologies of specific preverbs; (d) calques/influence from other languages. By means of concrete examples, it is also shown that cognate or semantically similar preverbs tend to undergo similar semantic shifts. Crucially, by analyzing a relatively small array of multiple preverb composites and by integrating the findings achieved by previous works on different languages, this thesis also contributes to shedding light on the common reasons behind the well-known preverbs’ grammaticalization and lexicalization. These developments were understood as two distinct re-analyses, both triggered by the same pivotal factor, specifically, the mentioned semantic solidarity that came to make preverbs’ semantic contributions be felt as redundant. Preverbs were thus either reassigned salient pieces of information as markers of actionality (grammaticalization), or were reinterpreted as part of the verbal stem (lexicalization).