Hintze, Almut

Indo-Iranian Journal

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Almut Hintze

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Kümmel, Martin, Stativ und Passivaorist im Indoiranischen

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BOOK REVIEWSKümmel, Martin, Stativ und Passivaorist im Indoiranischen [HistorischeSprachforschung, Ergänzungsheft 39]. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &Ruprecht, 1996. X + 185 pp. ISBN 3-525-26228-0. DM 64.This book, which goes back to a thesis submitted for the degree ofMagister Artium at the University of Freiburg, is to be seen as a furthermonographic contribution to the study of the Indo-Iranian – and Indo-European – verbal system. It investigates function and form of tworelatively small but – at least as far as the first one is concerned – archaiccategories of the Indo-Iranian verb:i.) middle presents with 3.sg. in IIr. *-ai , 3.pl. in *-rai , such as Ved. śáy-e‘lies’, plur. śe-re ‘they lie’ (= stative).ii.) 3.sg. in *-i and 3.pl. in *-ram/n with special ablaut and partlypatientive function, such as Ved. (a)jáni ‘was slain’ (= so-calledpassive aorist).While there is evidence for statives also outside Indo-Iranian, in particularin Anatolian and perhaps in Old Irish, the i-passive is a morphologicalcategory confined to Indo-Iranian languages.The material basis of the investigation is derived from the Avesta andthe Rigveda, although post-Rigvedic texts up to the Brāhman. a prose arealso considered. The presentation follows a well-tested pattern: the mainbody of the work, entitled Spezieller Teil (pp. 22–155), is constituted bya ‘dictionary’ and discusses forms and contexts of stative and i-passiveforms of individual verbal roots, which are arranged in the usual orderof the Sanskrit alphabet. The Vedic (pp. 22–142) and Avestan (pp. 143–155) materials are studied separately. This is a convenient arrangement,which makes the book easy to consult. The results of this investigationare presented in the first section, entitled Allgemeiner Teil (pp. 1–21). Abrief summary (Zusammenfassung, pp. 156–161) at the end of the bookincludes a useful table listing the examined Vedic and Avestan verbal roots,with indication of whether those roots form also a root present or aoristbesides their stative and/or i-passive forms. The work is concluded by aIndo-Iranian Journal 44: 269–274, 2001.© 2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.270 BOOK REVIEWSbibliography (pp. 161–171), an index locorum (pp. 172–181) and an indexof words (pp. 181–185).The individual monographic entries constituting the main part of thebook follow a basic pattern in discussing a particular root’s attestationsof stative and passive aorist forms. Different chronological layers withinthe Vedic literature are hereby taken into consideration. As a result, eachentry offers a morphological mini-history of the stative and i-passive formswithin the individual verbal system of a particular root. For example, theentry of the Vedic root ı̄ś ‘to be lord over’ informs the reader that, whilestatives of this root are attested in the Rigveda (3rd sg. ´̄ıśe, 3rd pl. ´̄ıśire),they start to be replaced by regular middle forms already in the RV, aprocess which is complete in the younger Brāhman. a prose (pp. 23–24).Whenever necessary, forms are quoted in their full contexts together witha translation, usually the author’s own.While these monographic discussions of forms and text passages offer auseful collection of the material and numerous interesting and occasionallythought-provoking interpretations, they do not always give a full accountof the attestations. For example, the form ádr. śran ‘they have appeared’ isattested seven and not, as stated by M.K., six times (RV 7.76.2 is missing,p. 65). Another instance is the form ádarśi, attested 16 times accordingto Grassmann 627, but 12 times according to M.K. 64–65, who, however,lists 14 attestations (a reference to RV 1.124.3 is lacking). It is obviouslyimpossible for the reviewer to check all forms, but it is somewhat irritatingto find that the inventory of the Rigvedic attestations of two forms of thesame verbal root is incomplete.Moreover, problematic forms and the relevant secondary literature arenot always discussed in as much detail as one might wish. Entirely missingis a discussion of the Old Avestan form Y 44.18 apiuuaitı̄, which Bartho-lomae, AirWb. 1343 and others interpret as a passive aorist of the rootvat (see Hintze 2000, p. 257(32) with references). Another instance isthe Old Avestan hapax legomenon mraoı̄ in Y 32.14. M.K. interprets theform as a 3rd sg. passive aorist without referring to Bartholomae, AirWb.1193, who saw in it a ‘Präteritum Passivi’, cf. GIP I.1, p. 209 §365.M.K. argues that the paradigmatic integration of mraoı̄ as the passiveaorist of mrū ‘to speak’ could pre-date the suppletion of its aorist by vac‘to speak’. However, since mrū and vac actually form a paradigm in theOlder Avesta with the i-passive supplied by vac (Y 43.13 vācı̄, Y 36.6auuācı̄), Humbach’s objections [WZKSO 1, 1957, p. 91(26), followed e.g.by Kellens 1974, p. 325; 1984, p. 232 and 356, 357(12); Kellens/Pirart II289 and Hoffmann/Forssman p. 228] against Bartholomae’s view are valid.Humbach’s own preference for identifying the underlying root as mrū ‘toBOOK REVIEWS 271maltreat’ is supported by his observation that both in the Gathic passageY 32.14 and in Younger Avestan the words gauu- ‘ox, cow’ and jan ‘toslay’ are found in the immediate context of forms or derivatives from mrū‘to maltreat’. The interpretation of mraoı̄ as an i-passive from mrū ‘tospeak’ would accordingly require the assumption that the form belongs– just as YAv. jaini ‘was slain’ (which, M.K. 147f., however, categorizesas an aorist) – with the present stem, which is identical with the root. Inany case, however, whichever of these two roots mrū is seen in mraoı̄, be itmrū ‘to speak’ or mrū ‘to maltreat’ (in mrū-ra- ‘cruel’), the form does notagree with the Avestan sound law according which IIr. *au before syllabici, ı̄ should become uu (Hoffmann/Forssman p. 70). One would expectOAv. *mr uuı̄ < IIr. *mrauH-i, cf. – the only other instance of - uui inword final position – YAv. s uuı̄ Yt 1.15 < *sauHı̄, nom.sg. of s uuin- adj.‘strong’. M.K.’s claim that mraoı̄ would show a regular sound developmentfrom older *-auHi (p. 19) is entirely based on an ad-hoc assumption, sincethe sound law IIr. *aui > OAv., YAv. uui operates with set.-roots, too, cf.OAv. z uuı̄m (three-syllabic) Y 31.4 ‘to be invoked’ < IIr. *j́hauH- iiam(Ved. háviyam). It must therefore be assumed that original *mr uuı̄ wascorrupted to mraoı̄, perhaps under the influence of forms from mrū ‘tospeak’, such as 1 sg. mraomı̄, which is actually the reading of the PahlaviYasna manuscript J2 in Y 32.14.Even if some forms and attestations are lacking and even if some ofM.K.’s interpretations of individual forms are less certain than they mightappear, taken altogether, the monographic entries offer a fair presentationof the Vedic and Avestan material. This constitutes the basis of the moregeneral reflections in the first part of the book, entitled Allgemeiner Teil.M.K.’s summary of the history of the problem (‘Der Stativ: Problem undForschungsgeschichte’, pp. 2–5) presents basically two different views onthe origins of the Vedic verbal forms in -e and -re. One group of scholars,including C. Watkins and J. Jasanoff, interpret them as archaic forms ofthe middle. Others, including H. Eichner, N. Oettinger and H. Rix, pose aseparate Indo-European verbal category ‘stative’. The latter is also M.K.’sown stance. Within that group, however, there is difference of opinion asto whether statives were formed only in the third persons or also in the firstand second ones. The problem arises from the fact that stative forms areattested only in the third persons singular and plural, and in the imperative.Oettinger 1976, 110 reconstructs accordingly only third persons while H.Rix 1977, p. 135 and esp. 1988, pp. 104–110 postulates a fully-fledgedseparate Indo-European voice ‘stative’ besides active and middle. Thepersonal endings of the stative are taken as being basically identical withthose of the perfect which would accordingly be a reduplicated stative.272 BOOK REVIEWSWhen the voice ‘stative’ disappeared, possibly still during the commonIE period, the perfect was integrated into the active while the stative wasassociated with the middle (pp. 8–9).However, one is left wondering about how the ablaut which charac-terized the original statives relates to that of the perfects, a problem notaddressed by M.K. As to the ablaut of the statives, M.K. p. 2 endorsesWatkins’ reconstruction of two original types, an oxytone (*dhugh-é/ó >Vedic duhé) and a barytone one (*ḱéi-o/e > Ved. śáye). The perfects,however, differ from the statives not only by reduplication but also bythe o-grade of the root in the singular. Moreover, there seems to be alsoan unreduplicated type with o-grade in the singular and no reduplication,represented by *uoid-e ‘he knows’, which would have to be considered asan original stative according to M.K.’s reconstruction.In his discussion of the stative in Indo-Iranian (pp. 9–14), M.K. categor-izes the Vedic and Avestan statives on the basis of their contextual meaningand their position within the individual verbal system of a particular root.He identifies three types of statives in Vedic and two in Avestan. Moststatives belong to the first group, which M.K. calls ‘Oppositionsstativ’.They have a passive meaning and contrast both formally and functionallywith middle forms of agentive-reflexive meaning, such as stative duhré‘they give milk’ (semantically from older ‘they can be milked’, p. 63)besides middle Ved. duhaté ‘they milk for themselves’, or stative IIr.*mluu-ái (Ved. bruvé, Av. mruiiē ‘he is said’) besides middle *mlū-tái(Ved. brūté, Av. ni-mrūite ‘he predicts for himself’, cf. p. 76, 150). M.K.derives the patientive function of the statives from their earlier stativefunction. The second type, which he calls ‘Stativa tantum’, such as Vedicı̄śe ‘is lord’, Av. sōire ‘they lie’, are isolated within the verbal system,lacking a contrasting middle and active. Thirdly, only in Vedic there are afew statives which have agentive meaning and are used just like middleforms, e.g. ví r. n. vire ‘they open for themselves’. Since statives of thatfunction are always derived from characterized present stems, M.K. arguesconvincingly that they are younger formations. The loss of the functionaldifference between (patientive) statives and (agentive-reflexive) middleeventually leads to the merger of the two categories and the completedisappearance of statives, which have been entirely replaced by middleforms in the Younger Brāhman. a prose.In his discussion of the passive aorist (pp. 14–20), M.K. concludes thatboth the Vedic and the Avestan attestations point to an original resultativefunction of this formation. He accepts the old view (p. 15) that the i-passive goes back to an i-stem adjective with o-ablaut grade and resultativemeaning, as continued e.g. in Greek τρóϕις ‘well-fed, stout, large’, fromBOOK REVIEWS 273τρ′εϕω ‘to cause to grow, bring up, rear’. While it has already been noted byother scholars that 3rd plurals in -ran/-ram belong paradigmatically withthe 3.sg. passive aorist in -i, M.K.’s merit is to provide a full inventoryof the forms on which this observation is based (pp. 15–18). With regardto their function he concludes that the passive aorists of transitive verbshave patientive meaning while those of intransitive verbs have fientive oragentive meaning, e.g. áyoji, áyujran ‘has, have been yoked’ (Hintze 2000,p. 80(5) is to be corrected accordingly) vs. ábodhi, ábudhram/n ‘is, areawoken’. Thus the passive aorists exhibit the same functional distributionas the verbal adjective in -ta-, an agreement which M.K. derives from theoriginal resultative function of both formations (p. 18f.).Finally, the relationship between the 3rd plural imperfect stative (whichis not attested in Avestan) and passive aorist is discussed (pp. 20–21).Both formations are characterized by identical personal endings -ram/ran,but they are never found with roots which form both a stative and apassive aorist. M.K. derives the 3rd plural passive aorist from the 3rdplural stative by the assumption that 3rd plural statives were re-interpretedas 3rd plural passive aorists due to a shift of focus from the state tothe event. For example, the semantic focus of an (hypothetical) stativeinjunctive IIr. *dr. ćrá ‘they are visible’ would have shifted to the precedingevent. The form could thus also be understood as ‘they have becomevisible, have appeared’. As a consequence, M.K. argues, it would havebeen interpreted as a 3rd plural belonging paradigmatically to the 3rd sg.passive aorist *dárći ‘he has been seen, has appeared’. Whether or not oneaccepts this particular explanation, the emergence of the 3rd plural passiveaorists should probably be seen in connection with the development of thepatientive function of the statives.This book by Martin Kümmel is a valuable contribution to Indo-Iranian verbal morphology for three major reasons. First, by providing aninventory and discussion of (nearly) all relevant forms and their contextsin Vedic and Avestan, he makes the Indo-Iranian material of the twocategories easily available. Second, he has achieved a categorization of thedifferent meanings of the statives and passive aorists in Vedic and Avestan.Third, he has firmly established that there are in Vedic 3rd plurals in-ram/ran and in Avestan 3rd sg. imperatives in -ąm both of which belongparadigmatically with the i-passive aorists within the synchronic systemsof the two languages. For these reasons, this book will remain an importantmonograph on the Indo-Iranian statives and passive aorists for years tocome.274REFERENCESChr. Bartholomae, AirWb.: Altiranisches Wörterbuch. Straßburg: Trübner, 1904, repr.Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1979.Chr. Bartholomae, GIP: ‘Vorgeschichte der iranischen Sprachen: Awestasprache undAltpersisch’. In: W. Geiger and E. Kuhn (eds.), Grundriß der iranischen Philologie,vol. I.1. Straßburg: Trübner, 1895–1902, 1–248.A. Hintze 2000: ‘Lohn’ im Indoiranischen. Eine semantische Studie des Rigveda undAvesta. Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2000 (Beiträge zur Iranistik 20).K. Hoffmann/B. Forssman: Avestische Laut- und Formenlehre. Innsbruck: Institut fürSprachwissenschaft, 1996 (IBS 84).J. Kellens 1974: Les noms-racines de l’Avesta. Wiesbaden: Reichert.J. Kellens 1984: Le verbe avestique. Wiesbaden: Reichert.J. Kellens/E. Pirart: Les textes vieil-avestiques. Wiesbaden: Reichert. Vol.I: Introduction,texte et traduction, 1988. Vol.II: Répertoires grammaticaux et lexique, 1990. Vol.III:Commentaire, 1991.N. Oettinger 1976: ‘Der indogermanische Stativ’. MSS 34, 109–149.N. Oettinger 1993: ‘Zur Funktion des indogermanischen Stativs’. In: G. Meiser (ed.), Indo-germanica et Italica. Festschrift für Helmut Rix zum 65. Geburtstag. Innsbruck: Institutfür Sprachwissenschaft, 341–361.H. Rix 1977: ‘Das keltische Verbalsystem auf dem Hintergrund des indo-iranisch-griechischen Rekonstruktionsmodells’. In: K.H. Schmidt (ed.), Indogermanisch undKeltisch. Kolloquium der Indogermanischen Gesellschaft am 16. und 17. Februar 1976in Bonn. Wiesbaden: Reichert.H. Rix 1988: ‘The Proto-Indo-European Middle: Content, Forms and Origin’. MSS 49,101–119.Clare Hall ALMUT HINTZEHerschel RoadCambridge CB3 9ALEnglandPandey, Shyam Manohar, Bhojpuri Loriki: The Hindi Oral Epic Tradition.Allahabad: Sahitya Bhavan 1995, pp. VIII, 80, 778, 5 plates.The ancient story of Lorik, his wife Mainā and his mistress Candāhas proved much more durable as a folk tale than as used in the sufiMaulānā Dāūd’s literary version, Candāyan (fourteenth century). Thepresent volume continues Dr Pandey’s work to publish the eight Avadhı̄and Bhojpurı̄ versions of the folk story which he collected in field workduring the 1960s and 70s. It is the fourth volume of the series, and thesecond to present a version in substantially unmixed Bhojpurı̄ language.This version, the longest in Pandey’s collection, was recorded in the BalliaIndo-Iranian Journal 44: 274–275, 2001.© 2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

Review: Martin Kümmel, Stativ und Passivaorist im Indoiranischen. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1996, (Historische Sprachforschung, Ergänzungsheft 39)

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