Abstract
Certain Vedic Sanskrit middle-voice verbs in -ya- have long received special attention for exhibiting accent variation between root and suffix. Various accounts for their behaviour and their origin have been proposed, and according to a recent analysis these verbs are anticausatives, contrasting with passives, and that suffix accent is secondary in Vedic. This analysis involves a speculative account of how anticausatives came to differ from passives. This chapter critically reviews earlier synchronic accounts, including that of Pāṇini, argues for a syntactically based account compatible with that of Pāṇini, and offers an alternative historical perspective to the one proposed in current analyses.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Alignment and Alignment Change in the Indo-European Family |
| Editors | Eystein Dahl |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press |
| Pages | 166-187 |
| Number of pages | 22 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 9780191890475 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9780198857907 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jan 1 2022 |
Keywords
- Vedic
- diachrony
- morphology
- syntax
- anticausative
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Arts and Humanities
- General Social Sciences