Indo-Uralic

INDO-URALIC

Frederik Kortlandt

CONTENTS INDO-URALIC Eight Indo-Uralic verbs? (1989) ................................................................................. 3 The Indo-Uralic verb (2001) ....................................................................................... 7 Nivkh as a Uralo-Siberian language (2002) ............................................................ 20 Indo-Uralic consonant gradation (2003) ................................................................ 24 Indo-Uralic and Altaic (2004) .................................................................................. 30 Indo-Uralic and Altaic revisited (2008) .................................................................. 34 REFERENCES.................................................................................................................. 44

EIGHT INDO-URALIC VERBS? Károly Rédei (1986) lists 64 words which were supposedly borrowed from IndoEuropean into Uralic at an early date. The material is divided into three groups: 7 Proto-Uralic (PU) etymologies, 18 Finno-Ugric (FU) etymologies, and 39 Finno-Permian (FP) and Finno-Volgaic (FV) etymologies. The source of the borrowings is specified as “vorarisch” for the PU words, “vorarisch oder frühurarisch” and “urarisch” for the FU words, and “frühurarisch” through “uriranisch” for the FP and FV words (Rédei 1986: 26). There are several reasons to call this account into question. Firstly, it is difficult to determine a place and a time which are suitable for borrowings from Indo-European into Proto-Uralic. We can probably identify the Proto-Indo-Europeans with the Sredny Stog culture in the eastern Ukraine around 4000 BC (cf. Mallory 1989 and K111). This clashes with the concept of direct borrowings from Indo-European into Proto-Uralic: “All that seems to be certain is that in the fourth millennium B.C. the ancestors of the Finno-Ugrians and the Samoyeds had lived on the eastern side of the Urals” (Fodor 1976: 50). The earliest contacts between Indo-European and Uralic languages must probably be identified with the eastward expansion of the “vorarische oder frühurarische” Yamnaya culture around 3000 BC and the simultaneous spread of the Finno-Ugric Ural-Kama neolithic culture to the southwest. Even if we were to assume an Uralic homeland west of the Ural mountains, earlier borrowings could only have been taken from the Samara and Khvalynsk cultures on the Middle Volga. Though it is conceivable that the languages spoken in that area were genetically related to Indo-European, or to Uralic, they cannot be identified with the language of the Sredny Stog culture. Secondly, the number of verbs in the oldest material is too large to support the hypothesis that they were borrowed: 3 out of 7 (43%) in the first group, 5 out of 18 (28%) in the second group, and 2 out of 39 (5%) in the third group. Moreover, the two verbs from the third group have questionable etymologies. The verb *kara- ‘graben’ (Rédei 1986: 51) is attested in the Volgaic languages (Mordvin and Cheremis) only. The corresponding words in the Permian languages (Votyak and Ziryene) and in Ob-Ugric (Ostyak) require a reconstruction *kur -, which is incompatible both with the Volgaic forms and with the alleged (Indo-)Iranian source. The verb *niδa- ‘befestigen, heften, binden’ (Rédei 1986: 53) is limited to Finno-Volgaic, e.g. Finnish nito-, Rédei doubts the connection with Skt. náhyati ‘binds’ himself: “Zufälliger Gleichklang?” If we eliminate these two items from the list, the presence of eight verbs in the older material becomes even more significant.

Thirdly, the derivation of the Proto-Uralic forms from their alleged IndoEuropean sources involves considerable formal difficulties. I shall briefly discuss the four nouns of the first group (Rédei 1986: 40-43). PU *nime ‘Name’, Finnish nimi, Mordvin ľem, Votyak and Ziryene ńim, Ostyak nem, Hung. név, Tavgi (Samoyed) ńim, etc. The PIE word must be reconstructed as *H3neH3mn, Latin nōmen, Hitt. lāman, Skt. nma, Arm. anun, oblique stem *H3nH3men-, Gr. ὄνομα, OIr. ainm, OPr. emmens, Russ. ímja, Alb. emër (cf. K073: 42, K090: 63). The only Indo-European language which has a front vowel in the root is Tocharian, where A ñom and B ñem point to a reconstruction *nēmn, with delabialization of the second laryngeal. But even this form does not account for the high front vowel of the Uralic words. The PIE word is probably a derivative of the verbal root *H3neH3-, Greek ὄνομαι ‘blame’ (cf. Kloekhorst 2008: 283). PU *se̮ne (*sōne) ‘Ader, Sehne’, Finnish suoni, Mordvin san, Votyak and Ziryene se̮n, Hung. ín, Tavgi taŋa, etc. The word is compared with PIE *sneH1ur, obl. -en-, Skt. snva, Toch. B ṣñor, Arm. neard, Gr. νεῦρον. Here again, the Indo-European forms do not explain the Uralic vocalism, which may be original if the words are related at all, whether the PIE word is a derivative of the root *sneH1- or not. A comparison with English sinew from *sH1inu- is no better. It is actually worse because the meaning of the latter word is the result of a Germanic innovation. PU *waśke ‘irgendein Metall, ?Kupfer’, Finnish vaski, Mordvin uśke, viśkä, Votyak veś, Hung. vas, Tavgi basa, etc. This is the only “Kulturwort” in the list. It may be compared with Toch. A wäs, B yasa ‘gold’, which point to earlier *wesa. The latter word cannot be identified with Latin aurum, Lith. áuksas, and besides does not explain the Uralic vocalism. It is much more probable that the Tocharian word was borrowed from Samoyed *wesä (Janhunen 1983: 120). PU *wete ‘Wasser’, Finnish vesi, Mordvin veď, Votyak vu, Hung. víz, Tavgi bēʔ, beda-, etc. In Indo-European, the e-grade is attested in Hittite obl. weten-, Phrygian βεδυ, Arm. get, and in Germanic and Slavic derivatives. If the word was actually borrowed int0 Uralic, this must have occurred at a very early stage. But it is not the kind of word that is easily borrowed, and the Indo-European forms rather look like derivatives of the (Indo-)Uralic word. Against this background, we must consider the possibility that the eight verbs in Rédei’s first and second groups were inherited from Proto-Indo-Uralic. I shall give a brief summary of the material (cf. Rédei 1986: 40-48). PU *miγe- ‘geben, verkaufen’, Finnish myy-, myö-, Mordvin mije-, Vogul (ObUgric) mä(j)-, mi-, maj-, Yenisei (Samoyed) miʔe-, PIE *mei-, Skt. minti ‘exchanges’, Latvian mît.

PU *muśke- (*mośke-) ‘waschen’, Estonian mõske-, Mordvin muśke-, muśko-, Votyak mi̮śk-, Hung. mos-, Yenisei musua-, PIE *mesg-, Skt. májjati ‘sinks’, Latin mergere, Lith. mazgóti ‘to wash’. PU *toγe- ‘bringen, holen, geben’, Finnish tuo-, Mordvin tuje-, Ostyak tu-, Yurak (Samoyed) tā-, PIE *deH3-, Skt. dádāti ‘gives’, Hitt. dā- ‘take’. FU *aja- ‘treiben, jagen’, Finnish aja-, Ziryene voj-, Vogul wujt-, wojt-, PIE *H2eg̑-, Skt. ájati ‘drives’, Latin agere. FU *kanɜ- ‘streuen, schütten, werfen, graben’, Ziryene kundi̮-, Ostyak ki̮ṇ-, Vogul kōn-, Hung. hány-, PIE *kH2en-, Skt. khánati ‘digs’. FU *teke- ‘tun, machen’, Finnish teke-, Mordvin ťeje-, ťije-, Hung. të(v)-, tësz-, PIE *dheH1-, Skt. dádhāti ‘puts’, Hitt. dāi-, Latin facere. FU *wetä- ‘führen, leiten, ziehen’, Finnish vetä-, Mordvin veďa-, veťa-, viťi-, väďa-, väťe-, Hung. vezet-, PIE *uedh-, OIr. fedid ‘leads’, Lith. vèsti. FU *wiγe- ‘nehmen, tragen’, Finnish vie-, Mordvin vije-, Votyak and Ziryene vaj-, Hung. vi(v)-, visz-, vë(v)-, vësz-, PIE *ueg̑h-, Skt. váhati ‘carries’, Latin vehere, Lith. vèžti. Apart from Skt. khánati, all of the Indo-European words are basic verbs with impeccable etymologies. This is a strong argument against borrowing and in favor of an original genetic relationship. As I have indicated elswhere (K111), we may conceive of Indo-European as a language of the Uralic type which was transformed under the influence of a Caucasian substratum. Following this line of thought I tentatively reconstruct Proto-Indo-Uralic *miye-, *muske-, *tagu-, *gaki-, *deka-, *weda-, *wige- (but cf. K203: 220). Thus, I think that the PIE laryngeals developed from velars in the neighborhood of back vowels, as did Yukagir h- (Collinder 1965: 168) and the uvulars in Turkic and Mongolian. It has been argued that the small number of Indo-Uralic etymologies favors the assumption of borrowing rather than genetic relationship (e.g. Rédei 1986: 10, 20). I am afraid that I fail to understand this reasoning. When we are dealing with distant linguistic affinity, we cannot expect to find large numbers of obvious cognates, which would be contrary to the idea of distant affinity. What we do expect to find is morphological correspondences and a few common items of basic vocabulary. I think that this is precisely what we find in the case of Indo-European and Uralic. Advocates of the alternative hypothesis, viz. that the verbs listed above were borrowed into Uralic, are faced with two insurmountable problems. First, they have to explain the prominent place of basic verbs among the oldest borrowings. Second, they do not account for the differences in the Uralic vocalism, e.g. *nime-, *miγe-, *wiγe- versus *wete, *teke-, *wetä-. It therefore seems to me that the burden of proof is now on the opponents of the Indo-Uralic theory.

Uhlenbeck (1935a: 9ff.) makes a distinction between two components of PIE, which he calls A and B. The first component comprises pronouns, verbal roots, and derivational suffixes, and may be compared with Uralic, whereas the second component contains isolated words, such as numerals and most underived nouns, which have a different source. This is a simplification because we can find good Uralic etymologies for some B words, e.g. Finnish käly ‘sisterin-law’, Gr. γάλως, Russ. zolóvka, but I think that the distinction is basically correct. The wide attestation of the Indo-European numerals must be attributed to the development of trade resulting from the increased mobility which was the primary cause of the Indo-European expansions. Numerals do not belong to the basic vocabulary of a neolithic culture, as is clear from their absence in ProtoUralic and from the spread of Chinese numerals throughout East Asia (cf. also Collinder 1965: 113 and Pedersen 1906: 369 on Swedish kast ‘4’, val ‘80’, Danish snes ‘20’, ol ‘80’, German Stiege ‘20’, Russ. sórok ‘40’, kopá ‘50, 60’). Though Uhlenbeck objects to the term “substratum” for his B complex, I think that it is a perfectly appropriate denomination. The concept of “mixed language” has done more harm than good to linguistics and should be abandoned.

THE INDO-URALIC VERB C.C. Uhlenbeck made a distinction between two components of Proto-IndoEuropean, which he called A and B (1935a: 133ff.). The first component comprises pronouns, verbal roots, and derivational suffixes, and may be compared with Uralic, whereas the second component contains isolated words, such as numerals and most underived nouns, which have a different source. The wide attestation of the Indo-European numerals must be attributed to the development of trade resulting from the increased mobility which was the primary cause of the Indo-European expansions. Numerals do not belong to the basic vocabulary of a neolithic culture, as is clear from their absence in ProtoUralic (cf. also Collinder 1965: 112) and from the spread of Chinese numerals throughout East Asia. Though Uhlenbeck objects to the term “substratum” for his B complex, I think that it is a perfectly appropriate denomination. The best candidate for the original Indo-European homeland is the territory of the Sredny Stog culture in the eastern Ukraine (cf. Mallory 1989). If we can identify Indo-Hittite and nuclear Indo-European with the beginning and the end of the Sredny Stog culture, respectively (cf. K111: 138), Uhlenbeck’s view can be unified with Gimbutas’ theory of a primary homeland north of the Caspian Sea and a secondary homeland north of the Black Sea (cf. 1985). What we have to take into account is the typological similarity of Proto-IndoEuropean to the North-West Caucasian languages. If this similarity can be attributed to areal factors (cf. K130: 94), we may think of Indo-European as a branch of Indo-Uralic which was transformed under the influence of a Caucasian substratum connected with the Maykop culture in the northern Caucasus. We may then locate the Indo-Uralic homeland south of the Ural Mountains in the seventh millennium BC (cf. Mallory 1989: 192f.) and perhaps identify the Khvalynsk culture on the middle Volga as an intermediate stage before the rise of the Sredny Stog culture in the fifth millennium BC. The Indo-European verbal system appears to combine Uralic flexional morphemes with Caucasian syntactic patterns. Holger Pedersen already argued that the subject of a transitive verb was in the genitive (= sigmatic nominative) case if it was animate and in the instrumental case if it was inanimate while the subject of an intransitive verb and the object of a transitive verb were in the absolutive (= asigmatic nominative) case form (1907: 152), that the endings of the perfect and the thematic present originally belonged to the flexion of intransitive verbs and the “normal”, mostly athematic endings to the flexion of transitive verbs (1933: 311-315), and that the intransitive and transitive flexion types correspond to the Hittite flexional paradigms in -hi and -mi (1938: 80-85).

Beekes has shown that this theory explains the origin of the Indo-European nominal flexion in its entirety (1985). Knobloch however identified the IndoEuropean thematic vowel in verbal paradigms *-e/o- with an object marker (1953). Elsewhere I have integrated these findings into a coherent whole, arguing that the Indo-European thematic flexion of the verb can be compared with the objective conjugation of the Uralic languages and that this hypothesis explains the distribution of the thematic flexion in Hittite and Sanskrit as well as the rise of the thematic subjunctive (K049, cf. Nikolaeva 1999 on the remarkably similar system in Ostyak). In the following I intend to examine the Indo-Uralic origins of the Proto-Indo-European verbal system which has thus been reconstructed. Since the Indo-European laryngeals apparently developed from uvular obstruents, I shall write *q1, *q2, *q3 in order to facilitate comparison with the Uralic data. Note that *dh stands for a lenis dental stop. My reconstruction contains the following Indo-European verbal paradigms (K033: 67, K049: 312, also Beekes 1995: 252, for the dual endings see K145): I. athematic present (dynamic, subjective, imperfective) 1st sg. 2nd sg. 3rd sg.

-mi -si -ti

1st pl. 2nd pl. 3rd pl.

-mes -tq1e -(e)nti

II. athematic aorist (dynamic, subjective, perfective) 1st sg. 2nd sg. 3rd sg.

-m -s -t

1st pl. 2nd pl. 3rd pl.

-me -te -(e)nt

III. thematic aorist (dynamic, objective, perfective) 1st sg. 2nd sg. 3rd sg.

-om -es -et

1st pl. 2nd pl. 3rd pl.

-omo -ete -ont

IV. thematic present (dynamic, objective, imperfective) 1st sg. 2nd sg. 3rd sg.

-oq1 -eq1i -e

1st pl. 2nd pl. 3rd pl.

-omom -etq1e -o

1st pl. 2nd pl. 3rd pl.

-me -e -(ē)r

V. perfect (static, perfective) 1st sg. 2nd sg. 3rd sg.

-q2e -tq2e -e

VI. stative (static, imperfective) 1st sg. 2nd sg. 3rd sg.

-q2 -tq2o -o

1st pl. 2nd pl. 3rd pl.

-medhq2 -dhwe -ro

The six paradigms were originally interconnected by a network of derivative, not flexional relationships. While the stative supplied a middle paradigm to intransitive verb stems, the transitive middle paradigm combined the endings of sets II and VI (cf. K044: 128): VII. transitive middle 1st sg. 2nd sg. 3rd sg.

-mq2 -stq2o -to

1st pl. 2nd pl. 3rd pl.

-medhq2 -tdhwe -ntro

Note that the system looks like the remains of a much more elaborate, but perhaps more regular structure. The most probable grammatical correspondences between Indo-European, Uralic, and other possibly related language families have conveniently been summarized by Joseph Greenberg (2000). The following items from his list are in my view definitely Indo-Uralic (I retain Greenberg’s numbering): 1. 4. 8. 11. 12. 14. 15. 16. 24. 25. 26. 29. 30. 31. 33. 36. 38. 39. 42. 43. 44.

first person *m, second person *t, demonstrative *i/e, demonstrative *t, demonstrative *s, dual *ki, plural *t, plural *i, accusative *m, genitive *n, dative *ka, locative *ru, locative *n, locative *i, ablative *t, diminutive *k, nominalizer *i, nominalizer *m, participle *n, participle *t, participle *nt,

45. 46. 53. 54. 56. 60.

participle *l, verbal noun *s, conative *sk, reflexive *u/w, negative *n, interrogative *k.

After this rather lengthy introduction, I now come to the chief part of my contribution, which is a comparison of the reconstructed Indo-European verbal system with its Uralic counterpart. There are two major problems involved here. On the one hand, the shallow time depth of the Uralic data does not allow a reconstruction of the Proto-Uralic verbal system but only of (some of) its components. This deficiency is mitigated by the relatively conservative character of the Uralic languages. On the other hand, the great antiquity of the earliest Indo-European evidence is to some extent invalidated by the radical changes which took place under the influence of the presumably Caucasian substratum. I start from the assumption that the Proto-Indo-Uralic vowel system was identical with the one which has been reconstructed for ProtoUralic (cf. Sammallahti 1988: 481): i e ä

ü

ï

u o

a

This system was reduced in non-initial syllables: i ä

ï a

Moreover, “front and back vowels could not occur together in a (noncompound) word” (Sammallahti, l.c.), so that we can write /i/ for [i, ï] and /a/ for [ä, a] in non-initial syllables. The Proto-Indo-Uralic consonant system cannot easily be reconstructed because the gap between Uralic and Indo-European is huge. I reconstruct Proto-Uralic palatalized /ŕ/ and /ľ/ instead of Sammallahti’s spirants /d/ and /ď/ because they pattern like resonants and are reflected as *r and *j in Samoyedic and as *l and *ľ in Finno-Ugric (cf. Sammallahti 1988: 485, 511f., 518, 532), cf. also the variation between Proto-Finno-Permic *śülki and Proto-Ugric *süľki ‘saliva’. I prefer to write Proto-Uralic *q for Sammallahti’s /x/, which is strongly reminiscent of the Indo-European laryngeals (being lost before a vowel and vocalized before a consonant in Samoyedic and lengthening a preceding vowel before a consonant in Finno-Ugric) and may represent more than a single phoneme. Thus, I arrive at the following Proto-Uralic consonant system:

p m w

t s n r l

c ś ń ŕ ľ j

k

q

ŋ

Unlike Uralic, Indo-European had three series of stops, conventionally written *t, *d, *dh, etc. The difference between fortis *t and lenis *dh is in my view the result of a secondary development, conditioned by the tonal patterns of strings of morphemes (cf. Lubotsky 1988: 4-7). It is reminiscent of Verner’s law in Germanic and similar phenomena in other languages. Though I do not intend to discuss lexical correspondences here, I would like to adduce seven IndoUralic etymologies which seem particularly attractive to me (cf. K112, Sammallahti 1988: 538, 542, 550f.): (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7)

*meqi- ‘give, sell’, PIE *mey- ‘exchange’; *mośki- ‘wash’, PIE *mesg- ‘sink, wash’; *(q)aja- ‘drive’, PIE *q2eg̑- ‘drive’; *teki- ‘do’, PIE *dheq1- ‘put’; *toqi- ‘bring’, PIE *deq3- ‘give’; *weta- ‘pull’, PIE *wedh- ‘lead’; *wiqi- ‘take’, PIE *weg̑h- ‘carry’.

It appears that no simple sound laws can be established. While it is probable that the Indo-European distinction between palatovelars *k̑, *g̑, *g̑h and labiovelars *kw, *gw, *gwh arose when the distinctive timbre of the following vowel was lost (as happened in Ethiopic), the relation between velars and uvulars remains unclear. In particular, the correspondence of Uralic *mośki-, *teki-, *toqi-, *wiqi- with Indo-European *mesg-, *dheq1-, *deq3-, *weg̑h- suggests that the distinction between velars and uvulars is due to a secondary development. If we look beyond Indo-Uralic to the Altaic languages, we should expect that the uvulars developed from velars before back vowels and that the original distribution was obscured by the reduction of the vowel system in non-initial syllables. While Indo-European looks like the development of a Uralic system, the latter looks like having developed from an Altaic system. I therefore take the Uralic distribution of *k and *q to be probably more original and assume for Indo-European secondary fronting in *weg̑h- < *wiqi- and secondary retraction in *dheq1- < *teki- (see further below). The rounded laryngeal *q3 of IndoEuropean *deq3- < *toqi- suggests that the non-initial vowel was rounded as a result of Indo-Uralic vowel harmony in this root. Greenberg rightly points out that Indo-European *i and *u represent not only syllabic *y and *w but also original vowels which alternated with *e and *o

(2000: 34-39), though his examples are largely incorrect (cf. K069 and K065: 222). For the present purpose it suffices to adduce the relevant instances from Greenberg’s list of Indo-Uralic morphemes (see above): 1. 4. 8. 14. 16. 26. 31. 33. 38. 54. 60.

first person *-mi beside *m, second person *-si beside *t (see below), demonstrative *i- beside *e-, dual *-i beside *-e beside *-q1 (cf. K118), plural *-i beside *-es (see below), dative *g̑hi beside *q (see below), locative *-i, ablative *-os beside *-t (see below), nominalizer *-i, reflexive *-o (see below), interrogative *kwi- beside *kwe-.

Beekes distinguishes three stages in the development of the Indo-European vowel system (1985: 157): I. full grade (i.e. non-high) vowels *e and *o in stressed syllables only; II. introduction of *o in unstressed syllables; III. introduction of *e in unstressed syllables. This theory accounts for all types of vowel alternation in the Indo-European nominal inflexion (cf. especially Beekes 1985: 161, 169, 207). However, as I doubt the possibility of o-grade in stressed syllables at stage I when all unstressed syllables had zero grade, I would propose the following alternative chronology: A. Indo-European vowel reduction, giving rise to full grade *e under the stress and zero grade elsewhere; B. phonetic lowering of *u (= syllabic *w) to *o, giving rise to a full grade (= non-high) vowel in unstressed syllables; C. analogical introduction of a full grade vowel in unstressed syllables (e.g. in compounds), which automatically yielded new *o; D. introduction of *o in stressed syllables (e.g. by decompounding), resulting in a phonemic opposition between /e/ and /o/ under the stress; E. analogical introduction of full grade *e in unstressed syllables, generalizing the opposition between /e/ and /o/; F. rise of lengthened grade vowels *ē and *ō, yielding the conventional ProtoIndo-European vowel system. This chronology has the advantage of providing an explanation for the successive stages in the development of the vowel system. It also accounts for Beekes’ “difficulty which I cannot explain” (1985: 196) that neuter i- and u-stems as a rule have o-grade whereas masculines and feminines have e-grade in the

root because the uninflected neuter form was found in compounds, unlike the nominative in *-s and the accusative in *-m of masculines and feminines. Moreover, it accounts for the frequent instances of *wo after a consonant where the semivowel was restored on the basis of an alternating *w, especially before *i and *r, which were syllabic in the zero grade, e.g. in the words for ‘two’ and ‘four’. We now come to the crucial sound law which identifies Indo-European as a branch of Indo-Uralic: *ti was assibilated to *si (as later happened in Finnish). The principal evidence for this sound law consists of three pieces, viz. the 2nd sg. ending *-si beside *t-, the plural ending *-es beside *-i, and the ablative ending *-os beside *-t. A fourth piece of evidence is the isolated pronoun *sim for *tim (cf. Beekes 1983: 219-224). A fifth piece of evidence is the perfect participle, cf. Greek masc. εἰδότ-, fem. ἰδυῖα < *-us-iq2 < *-ut-iq2 ‘knowing’, Vedic neuter -vát beside -úṣ-. The Proto-Uralic pronouns 1st sg. *mi, 2nd sg. *ti (later *mu, *tu with the suffix *-u ‘self’), 1st pl. *me, 2nd pl. *te (later *me-i, *te-i with the plural ending *-i) are attested in the corresponding personal endings *-mi, *-ti, *-me, *-te (cf. Collinder 1960: 243, 308, Raun 1988: 562), which can be identified with the corresponding Proto-Indo-European athematic endings *-mi, *-si, *-me, *-te. These endings are directly preserved as *-m, *-s, *-me, *-te in the athematic aorist (II), where the final *-i was lost because it was unstressed. In the athematic present (I) the final *-i was restored on the basis of the independent pronouns at an early stage, while 1st pl. *-me received the additional plural marker *-s and 2nd pl. *-tq1e was taken from the thematic present (IV). When the latter substitution took place, it was evidently more important to distinguish between the present (I, IV) and the aorist (II, III) than between the athematic (I, II) and the thematic (III, IV) flexion, which were already differentiated by the thematic vowel in the latter paradigms. The Proto-Uralic plural suffix was *t in the nominative and *i in the oblique cases (cf. Collinder 1960: 237, 297f., Raun 1988: 557f.). The ending *-i is preserved in the Proto-Indo-European 3rd pl. ending *-nti of the athematic present (I), which evidently represents the original nom.pl. ending of the nt-participle, like Finnish laulavat ‘they sing’ (cf. Collinder 1960: 243), and in the Proto-Indo-European pronoun, e.g. nom. *to-i, gen. *to-i-s-om, dat. *to-i-mus, abl. *to-i-os, inst. *to-i-bhi, loc. *to-i-su (cf. K065: 222). The ending *-i was apparently added to the original nom.pl. ending *-t, which after the loss of unstressed *-i yielded *-s < *-si < *-ti. Thus, the Indo-European ending *-es represents *-eti. The correspondence between Uralic and Indo-European is even closer if Janhunen is right that Proto-Uralic *-i was originally a conjunctive rather than an oblique ending (1982: 29f.) because this explains the Indo-European distribution of *-i in the pronoun and the participle versus *-es in the noun. The Indo-European acc.pl. ending *-ns looks like the Proto-Uralic

gen.sg. ending *-n plus the new plural ending *-s < *-ti. This suggests that it was created as a definite oblique plural ending after *-n had developed into a general oblique singular ending (subsequently yielding n-stems) in Indo-European. Proto-Uralic gen.sg. *-n and acc.sg. *-m were probably limited to definite nouns (cf. Janhunen 1982: 31) and the same must be assumed for the Indo-European acc.sg. ending *-m. Note that the 3rd pl. ending *-nti must be due to restoration because both *t and *-i have been preserved. It was evidently built on the 3rd pl. ending *-nt of the athematic aorist (II), which will be discussed below. The Proto-Uralic ablative suffix *-ta developed into a partitive in Finnish and into an instrumental -l in Ugric, though the latter may have lacked the final vowel (cf. Collinder 1960: 287f., Raun 1988: 559). In Indo-European there is an ablative in *-t which functions as an instrumental in Hittite, which has an ablative in -z < *-t-i. There is another ablative in *-os which also functions as a genitive and earlier apparently as an ergative which became the nom.sg. form of the nominal thematic flexion (cf. Beekes 1985: 176-195). Finally, there is an ablative in *-tos which evidently represents *-t-os (cf. Beekes 1985: 181f.). The abl.pl. ending was probably *-ios (cf. Beekes 1985: 144f.), which reflects plural *-i plus ablative *-os. The simplest explanation of all these endings is that the original Indo-Uralic ablative ending *-ta was replaced by *-ti in its local use in order to differentiate it from its instrumental use and then developed into *-s. This explains why *-t is found as a relic in the ablative of the personal pronouns and the o-stems (where it had to be distinct from the nominative ending *-s) and in the Hittite instrumental, whereas we find *-os in the ablative and genitive of the consonant stems and in the nominative of the o-stems. I think that the same *-t survives in the pronominal ending of the neuter o-stems, reflecting the substitution of the instrumental for the ergative with inanimate agents in transitive constructions. We now return to the Indo-European verbal paradigms cited above. The 3rd sg. ending *-t of the athematic aorist (II) evidently represents the IndoUralic demonstrative *t (no. 11), cf. Indo-European *to- (with o-grade from stage C, see above), which was added to the original zero ending. Note that the endings *-m, *-s, *-t correspond to the oblique endings of the Indo-European pronouns. In Uralic (or rather Uralo-Siberian, cf. Uhlenbeck 1935b, Fortescue 1998, Seefloth 2000) the 3rd sg. pronoun was supplied by the demonstrative *s (no. 12), e.g. Finnish hän, which corresponds to the Indo-European nominative *so (again with o-grade from stage C). The formative suffix of the sigmatic aorist must be derived from the verbal noun in *-s (no. 46, cf. Janhunen 1982: 36). The 3rd sg. ending *-ti of the athematic present (I) is evidently analogical after 1st sg. *-mi and 2nd sg. *-si. The 2nd sg. imperative ending *-dhi may represent the original pronoun *ti with restored *t-. Elsewhere I have compared the difference between the athematic present (I), e.g. Vedic ád-mi ‘I eat’, and the thematic present (IV), e.g. Greek ἔδ-ο-μ-αι ‘I

will eat’, with the distinction between Bulgarian spj-a ‘I sleep’ and spi mi se ‘I am sleepy’ (K049: 319). While the athematic (subjective) flexion has an agent marker (Vedic -mi, Bulg. -a), the thematic (objective) flexion has a patient marker (Gr. -o-, Bulg. zero), an experiencer (Gr. -m-, Bulg. dative mi), and a reflexive marker (Gr. -ai, Bulg. acc. se). It has long been recognized that there is a correlation between thematic flexion and middle voice, as opposed to an athematic active paradigm, in the oldest Indo-European material (cf. Thieme 1929: 53, Renou 1932: 21). I therefore think that the thematic present endings (IV) represent a combination of object, recipient, and reflexive marking. The thematic aorist endings (III) evidently combine the object marker *-e/o- with the agent markers of the athematic aorist (II). When we compare the thematic present endings with the Indo-Uralic morphemes listed above, the obvious candidate for the 3rd sg. ending *-e is the demonstrative *e beside *i (no. 8). The characteristic laryngeal *q1 of the nonthird persons may perhaps be compared with the dative marker *ka (no. 26). Note that the 1st pl. ending *-omom may actually represent *-omq1om, so that the non-third person plural endings may contain Indo-Uralic *me-ka ‘to us’, *te-ka ‘to you’. Since the double full grade vowel in the endings *-omq1om, *-etq1e cannot be original, the addition of final *-om and *-e must have been recent. The final vowel of the 2nd sg. ending *-eq1i may have been taken from the athematic present, perhaps in order to disambiguate it from the derivative suffix *-eq1 which is found e.g. in the Greek passive aorist. The addition of this final *-i must obviously have been more recent than the grammatical differentiation between athematic present and aorist. Thus, we may reconstruct the following paradigm for the thematic present at an early stage (IVa): 1st sg. 2nd sg. 3rd sg.

-o-q1 -e-q1 -e

1st pl. 2nd pl. 3rd pl.

-o-mq1 -e-tq1 -o

This paradigm must be examined in relation to the perfect (V) and the stative (VI). We may wonder if the thematic present must properly be called transitive or intransitive. I think that this is largely a matter of terminology. In the Bulgarian example spi mi se ‘I am sleepy’, which contains three person markers, a clearly intransitive situation is described by the reflexivization of a 3rd sg. intransitive verb form with the sole real participant in the dative. I claim that the same construction is found in Indo-European not only in the thematic present, but also in the perfect and the stative. As in the thematic present, I think that we have a patient marker and an experiencer in the perfect. If the agent was mentioned, it was probably in the dative if it was animate and in the instrumental if it was inanimate (cf. K049: 321). Here again, the obvious candidate for the 3rd sg. ending *-e is the

demonstrative *e and the characteristic laryngeal *q2 of the non-third persons may be compared with the dative marker *ka. The reconstructed endings 1st pl. *-me, 2nd pl. *-e may actually represent *-mq2e, *-q2e (cf. K033: 68), which yields the following paradigm for the perfect at an early stage (Va): 1st sg. 2nd sg. 3rd sg.

-q2-e -tq2-e -e

1st pl. 2nd pl. 3rd pl.

-mq2-e -q2-e -r

This paradigm differs from the thematic present first of all in the order of the constituent morphemes. It is reasonable to assume that the first part of the ending belongs more closely with the preceding stem while the second part has a more independent status. If we simplify matters by substituting ‘I have’ for the dative ‘to me’, we may paraphrase the thematic present as “I have it being changed” and the perfect as “it is me having changed”. The distribution of *m and *t suggests that these are person markers and that number was originally unmarked, perhaps because the following vowel was lost by the Indo-European vowel reduction (stage A). In the thematic present, *m and *t could be confined to the plural on the analogy of the athematic flexion because first and second person were already distinguished by the thematic vowel. In the perfect, the same distribution is found in the first person, but not in the second, where the 2nd sg. form was obviously much more frequent than its plural counterpart. The remarkable elimination of the person marker in the plural ending suggests that it was disambiguated from the singular ending, which then must have been homophonous at the time. This brings us back to the distribution of velars and uvulars in Indo-Uralic. If the Indo-European distinction between palatovelars and labiovelars arose when the distinctive timbre of the following vowel was lost and the uvulars developed from velars before back vowels, we expect e.g. *k̑ < *ki, *kw < *kü, *q2 < *kï, *q3 < *ku. Note that *q1 has a special position because it does not colour a contiguous vowel and is automatic if there is no other word-initial consonant. It has often been identified with a glottal stop. We may then hypothesize that it developed from *k if no vowel followed. Interestingly, there is some evidence for reduction of laryngeals in word-final position. The Indo-European vowel reduction changed the root structure from *CV(C)CV- into *CV(C)C- and, consequently, the suffixal structure from *-CV- into *-VC-, with full grade *e under the stress, shwa secundum in unstressed closed syllables, and zero in unstressed open syllables. Final clusters ending in a laryngeal may have originated from medial clusters of any consonant plus *k, which were particularly frequent (cf. Sammallahti 1988: 492). This accounts for the peculiar loss of laryngeals in compounds and o-grade formations, where the final laryngeal was lost before the initial consonant of the second component (cf. Hirt 1921: 185-187). Thus, I think that the particle *g̑hi, the k-perfect of Greek and

Latin, and the laryngeals *q1 in the thematic present and *q2 in the perfect all go back to the same element, which appears as -k or -ka in Uralic, often followed by other suffixes (cf. Collinder 1960: 296, Raun 1988: 560, also Fortescue 1998: 115). The principal difference between the stative (VI) and the perfect (V) is the 3rd sg. ending *-o instead of *-e. Since the stative was used to supply a middle paradigm, I think that the ending can be identified with the Indo-Uralic reflexive *u/w (no. 54), which yielded *-o in Indo-European (stage B). If *-e was a patient marker and the preceding element an experiencer in the perfect, the stative is structurally comparable with the Bulgarian example spi mi se ‘I am sleepy’. Since the *-o is absent from the 1st sg. as well as the 1st pl. and 2nd pl. endings, we must conclude that it was originally limited to the third person. The final vowel of the 2nd sg. ending *-tq2o can easily have been taken from the 3rd sg. form. The reconstructed 2nd pl. ending *-dhwe may actually represent *-dhq2we (cf. Melchert 1984: 26 and Kloekhorst 2008: 899), which yields the following paradigm for the stative at an early stage (VIa): 1st sg. 2nd sg. 3rd sg.

-q2 -tq2 -o

1st pl. 2nd pl. 3rd pl.

-medhq2 -dhq2-we -r-o

The corresponding transitive paradigm, where the endings were preceded by an agent marker, is the following (VIIa): 1st sg. 2nd sg. 3rd sg.

-m-q2 -s-tq2 -t-o

1st pl. 2nd pl. 3rd pl.

-me-dhq2 -t-dhq2-we -nt-r-o

This explains the correlation between thematic flexion and middle voice, as opposed to the athematic active paradigm, in the oldest Indo-European material. The suffixation of the Indo-Uralic reflexive element *u/w to verbal stems yielded intransitives, middles and passives in Uralic (cf. Collinder 1960: 281). In Indo-European, it seems to have developed an oppositional meaning in relation to first person *m, as is especially clear in the pronouns, cf. acc. *q1-me ‘this-me’ versus *t-we ‘thee-self’, *s-we ‘him-self’, possessive *q1-mos ‘this-my’ versus *t-wos ‘thy-own’, *s-wos ‘his-own’, also nom. *q1e-g̑- ‘I’ versus *t-u- ‘thou’. This explains why *-o spread to the 2nd sg. ending *-tq2o but not to the 1st sg. ending *-q2. It also explains the addition of *-we in the 2nd pl. ending. The elements 1st pl. *-medh- and 2nd pl. *-(t)dh- can be understood as replacements of earlier *-m- and *-(t)- before *-q2 in order to mark the plural subject of the stative. They can be identified as the absolutives (intransitive nominatives) *me-t and *te-t which were introduced when the laryngeal had lost its original function

and become a simple voice marker. This development could not take place in the perfect as long as *-e functioned as a subject marker. In the first person, *u/w is found instead of *m in the dual endings (cf. K145). It is probable that the difference between these two morphemes reflects an original distinction between inclusive and exclusive first person forms, *u/w meaning ‘you and I, ourselves’ and *m meaning ‘we as opposed to you’ (cf. Ivanov 1981: 21 and K223). We also find *u as a deictic element connected both with the meaning ‘self’, as in Greek αὐτός, and with the second person, in opposition to *k̑i for the first person (cf. K063). This meaning of *u/w as a person marker which distinguishes its referent from the first person *m now explains the substitution of *o for *e as the patient marker in first person forms of the thematic flexion. Thus, the meaning of the 1st sg. thematic endings *-om and *-oq1 can be paraphrased as ‘other by/to me’ whereas 2nd sg. *-es, *-eq1i and 3rd sg. *-et, *-e represent ‘this by/to thee/him/her’. The final vowel of the thematic aorist endings 1st pl. *-omo and 2nd pl. *-ete looks like a copy of the thematic vowel, and a similar origin may be suspected for the addition of final *-om and *-e in the corresponding thematic present endings. If we call the thematic vowel *-e/o- an object marker and the perfect ending *-e a subject marker, we can now summarize the general structure of the seven paradigms discussed above as follows: Stem-object-agent-recipient-subject-reflexive This structure may reflect the original order of the clitics from which the endings developed. The chronology of the developments can largely be deduced from the vocalism of the endings. The athematic aorist endings 1st pl. *-me, 2nd pl. *-te probably replaced *-m, *-t shortly after the Indo-European vowel reduction (stage A) on the basis of the independent pronouns and thereby introduced mobile stress in the verbal paradigm. The athematic present endings apparently developed in order to distinguish the actual present from the timeless aorist in imperfective verbs. The thematic aorist was the corresponding objective flexion, indicating a definite object. The substitution of *o for *e in the first person cannot have taken place before the introduction of *o in stressed syllables (stage D). The thematic present supplied an actual present for the objective flexion of imperfective verbs. It supplied a subjunctive after the introduction of *e in unstressed syllables (stage E) because this category has e-grade in the root. The perfect had final stress but introduced full grade in the root (stage C) and subsequently retracted the stress (stage D) in the singular forms, evidently on the analogy of the athematic present and aorist. The stative had e-grade in the root and developed the ending *-o by the phonetic lowering of *u in unstressed syllables (stage B). The middle aorist cannot have originated before the introduction of *o in stressed syllables (stage D) because it has zero grade in the root. The middle present supplied a dynamic counterpart to the

stative after the introduction of *o in stressed syllables (stage D) and a subjunctive after the introduction of *e in unstressed syllables (stage E). The 3rd pl. endings have not yet been discussed because their deviant accent pattern betrays a separate origin (cf. K065: 222). Pedersen already pointed to the possibility of identifying 3rd pl. “intransitive” *-r and “transitive” *-nt with the formative suffix of Greek nom. ὕδωρ ‘water’, oblique ὕδατ- < *-nt- (1933: 313). Both *r and *nt are found as formatives in neuters, collectives, and adjectives (cf. Benveniste 1935: 123-128). Interestingly, the accent of the 3rd pl. forms agrees with the oblique cases of the neuter, not with the nominative (cf. K195: 71). I therefore think that the 3rd pl. forms may be compared with English awry < on wry rather than wry ‘turned, twisted’. This explains why the stop in *-nt(i) was not assibilated to *s. The same construction is found in the singular of the perfect in *-ēu (cf. K099: 111), which represents the locative form of the u-stem from which the participle in Vedic -uṣ-, Greek -οτ- < *-ut- is derived. When we compare the 3rd pl. ending *-(e)nt with English -ing in agoing ‘in motion’, the corresponding perfect form in *-(ē)r can be compared with English asleep and identified as a nomen loci with the locative suffix *ru (no. 29). The Avestan ending -rš apparently added the nom.pl. ending *-s after *-r. No such explanation is possible for the thematic present ending *-o, which must be derived from the reflexive marker *u/w. There evidently was an impersonal form with the reflexive *u in object position which supplied a 3rd pl. form to the thematic present. If we may paraphrase the original meaning of the 1st sg. thematic present as “I have it being changed” and of the 1st sg. perfect as “it is me having changed”, the 3rd sg. forms can be derived from “there is it being changed” and “there is it having changed”. We can then identify the 3rd pl. form of the thematic present as “there is being changed”, with reflexive *-o replacing deictic *-e and thereby eliminating the 3rd sg. reference. There appear to have been no original 3rd pl. verb forms in Indo-Uralic. I conclude that the Indo-European verbal system can be understood in terms of its Indo-Uralic origins. Most importantly, the reconstructed endings can be derived from combinations of Indo-Uralic morphemes by a series of well-motivated phonetic and analogic developments. The component parts of the endings either represent original morphemes (-m, -s, -t, -me, -te, -nt, -q1, -q2, -e, -o, -r, -t-, -dh-) or were introduced for disambiguation from other endings.

NIVKH AS A URALO-SIBERIAN LANGUAGE In his magnificent book on the language relations across Bering Strait (1998), Michael Fortescue does not consider Nivkh (Gilyak) to be a Uralo-Siberian language. Elsewhere I have argued that the Indo-European verbal system can be understood in terms of its Indo-Uralic origins (K203). All of these languages belong to Joseph Greenberg’s Eurasiatic macro-family (2000). In the following I intend to reconsider the grammatical evidence for including Nivkh into the Uralo-Siberian language family. The Indo-Uralic evidence is of particular importance because it guarantees a time depth which cannot otherwise be attained. Nivkh initial consonants are subject to mutations which are strongly reminiscent of Celtic. Adopting Ekaterina Gruzdeva’s transcription (1998) except for the uvulars q, q‘, ḡ, x̄, γ̄ and the velar nasal ŋ, we can summarize the alternations as follows: (1) p, t, ť, k, q become v, r, z, γ, γ̄ after a vowel (which may have been lost) and analogically in certain categories; (2) p, t, ť, k, q become b, d, ď, g, ḡ after a nasal (which may or may not be lost); (3) p, t, ť, k, q become f, ř, s, x, x̄ after the 2nd sg. prefix č- and the reflexive prefix p‘-; (4) p‘, t‘, č, k‘, q‘ become f, ř, s, x, x̄ under the same conditions as (1) and (3) but remain unchanged under the conditions of (2); (5) p‘, t‘, č, k‘, q‘ become v, r, z, γ, γ̄ after the 3rd sg. prefix i-/e- in ablauting and cluster-initial verbs, e.g. iγď ‘kills’ of the verb k‘u- ‘kill’ (cf. Krejnovič 1958: 23f., Mattissen 2001: 142-146). On the basis of these alternations I reconstruct *VC for the voiced fricatives, *VNC for the voiced stops, *VHC for the voiceless fricatives, and *HC for the aspirated stops, where *C represents p, t, ť, k, q. Moreover, *VNHC > *VHC and *VHCC > *VCC. If *H developed from *h < *s, this brings the original consonant system rather close to the one reconstructed for Proto-Uralic (cf. K203: 220). Among the morphological elements for which I have suggested an IndoUralic origin (K203: 218f.), the following are likely candidates for a comparison with Nivkh (I retain the numbering of Greenberg 2000): 1. first person *m, 4. second person *t, 8. demonstrative *i/e, 11. demonstrative *t,

12. demonstrative *s, 14. dual *ki, 15. plural *t, 25. genitive *n, 44. participle *nt, 45. participle *l, 46. verbal noun *s, 54. reflexive *u/w. Other possible connections are less convincing. Nivkh case markers and postpositions appear to have a lexical source (cf. Panfilov 1962: 143-156 and Mattissen 2001: 93). The Uralic participle in *-pa (Collinder 1960: 270) and the Nivkh gerund in *-pa (Panfilov 1965: 145) may represent the only Uralo-Nivkh formation without an Indo-European cognate unless they are related to the root of the English verb ‘to be’. The reconstruction of interrogative *k and relative *j is highly questionable. The principal evidence for the Uralo-Siberian character of the Nivkh language is provided by the pronominal elements *m, *t, *i/e, *t, *s, *u/w. The personal pronouns are the following (cf. Gruzdeva 1998: 25f.; my reconstructions): 1st sg. ńi: *ńi, 1st du. megi/mege, meŋ, memak: *meŋki, 1st pl. incl. mer/mir, meřn/miřn, min: *mer, 1st pl. excl. ńyŋ, ńin: *ńiŋ, 2nd sg. či: *či, 2nd pl. čyŋ, čin: *čiŋ, 3rd sg. if, i, jaŋ: *iw, 3rd pl. imŋ, ivŋ, imγ, iřn, in: *iwŋ. These paradigms can be derived from the Indo-Uralic pronouns 1st sg. *mi, 1st du. *men-ki (‘the two of us’), 1st pl. *me-t, 2nd sg. *ti, 3rd sg. *i/e (cf. K203: 221f.), where sg. *mi, *ti, pl. *me are the reconstructed stems and *-n, *-ki, *-t are the suffixes for genitive, dual and plural mentioned above. The Indo-Uralic cognates suggest that Nivkh ńi and či developed phonetically from *mi and *ti, respectively. While the latter development is commonplace, the former is reminiscent of Czech [mń] < mj-, e.g. in město [mńesto] ‘city’, also (as Jos Schaeken reminds me) North Russian [ń] < [mń] < *-mj-, e.g. na zeni ‘on the ground’, na zeń ‘to the ground’ (Zaliznjak 1995: 62, Honselaar 2001: 23). It has been suggested that the pronominal stem me- must be derived from the numeral stem me- ‘two’ (cf. Austerlitz 1959: 109, Panfilov 1962: 205f.). This is highly improbable because it does not explain the occurrence of me- in the plural, the semantic contribution of the suffixes, and the unexpected order of

the pronominal and the numeral element (cf. Greenberg 1997: 192), cf. also megi men ‘we two’ (Panfilov 1962: 233), which cannot possibly be glossed as *‘two-du. two’. I reconstruct *iw for 3rd sg. if, oblique stem iv-, because this pronoun is limited to the Amur dialect, where *w > v (cf. Gruzdeva 1998: 11), and corresponds to i, oblique stem j- in Sakhalin (cf. Mattissen 2001: 20). It seems attractive to derive this *-w from the Indo-Uralic reflexive element *u/w, which may have been used as a reinforcement of the 3rd sg. pronoun *i/e. The IndoUralic demonstratives *t- and *s- are reflected in the Nivkh demonstrative stems t- ‘this’ and h- ‘that’ (cf. Gruzdeva 1998: 26, Mattissen 2001: 21). Apart from the personal pronouns, there are personal prefixes which denote the possessor of a following noun or the undergoer of a following verb form (cf. Mattissen 2001: 62ff. for the distribution of the allomorphs): 1st sg. ń-, ńi-, ńe-, n-, 2nd sg. č-, či-, če-, t‘-, 3rd sg. i-, v(i)-, j-, e-, reflexive p‘-, p‘i-, p‘e-, reciprocal u-, v-, o-. On the basis of the alternations in the root-initial consonant I reconstruct the following paradigms (cf. Mattissen 2001: 66-69): pax̄ ‘stone’, ńvax̄ ‘my stone’ < *mi-, čfax̄ ‘your stone’ < *tis-, p‘fax̄ ‘one’s own stone’ < *pis-, ibax̄ ‘his/her stone’ < *in-, ńyŋbax̄ ‘our stone’ < *minkun-, ńzaď ‘beats me’ < *mi-, čsaď ‘beats you’ < *tis-, p‘saď ‘beats him/herself’ < *pis-, zaď ‘beats someone’ < *i-, iďaď ‘beats him/her’ < *in-, ńyŋďaď ‘beats us’ < *minkun-, where *-kun is the plural suffix (cf. Gruzdeva 1998: 16, Greenberg 2000: 116). The 3rd sg. possessive prefix v(i)-, which is limited to the Amur dialect, apparently represents *iwin- and may have been introduced when initial *i- was lost. The final nasal of possessive *in- may represent the original genitive suffix *-n and may have been introduced into the verbal prefix for emphasis (cf. Mattissen 2001: 65). The reconstruction of final *-s in *tis- and *pis- accounts both for the following voiceless fricative and for the aspiration of the preceding plosive after the syncope of the intervening vowel.

The labial element of p‘i- has no obvious etymology. It is reminiscent of Latin ipse ‘self’, but also of dative sibī, Greek pl. σφι < *sbhi beside sg. οἱ < *swoi (for earlier *sui, cf. K203: 221), Slavic sebě, of which p‘i- could be the phonetic reflex, further Prussian sups ‘self’, Gothic sibja ‘clan’, silba ‘self’, cf. Greek φίλος ‘dear’, Indo-European *bhi ‘near’, which is perhaps related to Nivkh fiď ‘be in a place’, p‘iŋ ‘inhabitant’ (Greenberg 2000: 146). The prefix p‘i- may have ousted u- from its original reflexive function into secondary reciprocal use, as in Russian oni celujutsja ‘they kiss each other’ but oni celujut sebja ‘they kiss themselves’, cf. Nivkh ozmuď ‘love each other’ versus p‘ezmuď ‘love him/herself’ (Panfilov 1965: 52). This idea is supported by the possibility of identifying the labial of the 3rd sg. possessive prefix v(i)- < *iwin- with the reciprocal verbal prefix u-, as was suggested above. It allows us to identify the latter with the Indo-Uralic reflexive morpheme *u/w (cf. K203: 224). The verbal ending -ď, -ť, -d, -nd, -nt, -t < *-nt(i) (Gruzdeva 1998: 22, 33) can be identified with the Indo-Uralic participial suffix *nt (cf. Collinder 1960: 269f., 277f., Greenberg 2000: 184f.). It is found in finite and infinite verb forms and in participles and verbal nouns in Nivkh, Uralic, and Indo-European (cf. Panfilov 1962: 64-68, 1965: 153f., K203: 226) and is therefore a strong piece of evidence for a common origin. Another participial formation which may have been inherited are the verbal adjectives in *-l- (cf. Panfilov 1965: 85-88, Greenberg 2000: 190), e.g. Latin bibulus, Nivkh raxyla ńivx ‘drinker, drunkard’, as opposed to ra ńivx ‘drinker, person drinking’. This suffix is found in iterative verbs in Uralic (cf. Collinder 1960: 275f.). Finally, the Indo-Uralic verbal noun in *-s- (cf. Collinder 1960: 271, Greenberg 2000: 191f.) may be reflected in the Nivkh deverbal nouns in -s/-ř < *-s-t(i) denoting subject, object, instrument or result and in -f < *-s-p(i) denoting place of action or result (Panfilov 1962: 41-48, Gruzdeva 1998: 22). The labial of the latter suffix may again be identified with Indo-European *bhi ‘near’ and with the root of the Nivkh verb fiď ‘be in a place’. Thus, I think that we have strong indications of a close relationship between Nivkh and Indo-Uralic. The relations between these and the other Uralo-Siberian languages remain to be clarified (cf. also Bouda 1960, Tailleur 1960, Naert 1962).

INDO-URALIC CONSONANT GRADATION Koivulehto and Vennemann have recently (1996) revived Posti’s theory (1953) which attributed Finnic consonant gradation to Germanic influence, in particular to the influence of Verner’s law. This theory disregards the major differences between Finnic and Saami gradation (cf. Sammallahti 1998: 3) and ignores the similar gradation in Nganasan and Selkup (cf. Kallio 2000: 92). Janhunen recognizes that the Proto-Uralic stress pattern “divided the word in two-syllable sections with initial stress, with the main stress on the first section of the word”: (C)É(C)-CE(C)-CÈ(C)-CE(C) and asserts that this phenomenon “has convergently led to important phonotactic and morphophonemic developments”, especially the consonant gradation (1982: 27). I rather agree with Helimski, who maintains that “we are left with only two options: to believe in wonders capable of producing most incredible coincidences in related or unrelated languages – or to regard the consonant gradation found in FinnicLapp and in Nganasan, both in its rhythmic and syllabic forms, as a PUr. phenomenon” (1995: 28 = 2000: 176). On the basis of Janhunen’s Proto-Uralic stress pattern cited above, we may call odd syllables “strong” and even syllables “weak”, counting from the beginning of a word form. Helimski’s “rhythmic” and “syllabic” gradations can now be defined as follows (cf. 1995: 24-26 = 2000: 172-174): I. A consonant which follows the vocalic nucleus of a weak syllable is weakened. II. A consonant which precedes the vocalic nucleus of a closed weak syllable is weakened. These two rules are ordered because a closed weak syllable which becomes open by losing its coda as a result of I is no longer subject to II. Helimski shows that intervocalically the first rule yielded voiced fricatives and the second voiced stops both in Nganasan and in Finnic (1995: 31-33 = 2000: 178-179). It appears that the original situation is best preserved in North Saami, where non-weak consonants were strengthened (cf. Sammallahti 1998: 47-50). Note that the rules I and II yielded a subphonemic alternation between strong and weak consonants which was dependent on the stress pattern and could be either phonemicized or lost as a result of later developments. Elsewhere I have argued that the Indo-European verbal system can be understood in terms of its Indo-Uralic origins because the reconstructed IndoEuropean endings can be derived from combinations of Indo-Uralic morphemes by a series of well-motivated phonetic and analogic developments

(K203). In the same vein I claim that the Proto-Uralic consonant gradation accounts for the peculiar correlations between Indo-European root structure and accentuation discovered by Lubotsky (1988). The facts to be explained are the following: (1) Proto-Indo-European had three series of stops, which are traditionally considered to be voiceless, voiced, and voiced aspirated. There is reason to assume that the plain voiced stops were actually preglottalized (cf. K075) while the voiced aspirates may not have been aspirated. In order to avoid confusion I shall write *T, *ʔD, *Dh for the three series and call them fortes, glottalics and aspirates, respectively. (2) Proto-Indo-European roots with two stops could not contain two glottalics, so that **ʔDE(R)ʔD- is an impossible root structure. Moreover, fortes and aspirates could not co-occur in the same root, so that **TE(R)Dh- and **DhE(R)T- are also excluded. It follows that the distinction between fortes and aspirates was a prosodic feature of the root as a whole, which may be called “strong” if it contained *T and “weak” if it contained *Dh. (3) Dybo has shown (1968) that Baltic and Slavic morphemes can be divided into two prosodic classes, viz. “strong” morphemes which attract the accent and “weak” morphemes which repel the accent, and that the stress falls on the first strong morpheme of a word form. If a word form contains weak morphemes only, it has initial stress unless it can be cliticized as a whole to the preceding word form (cf. Lubotsky 1988: 3). This rule was perhaps inherited from ProtoIndo-European. It raises the question if the “strong” and “weak” consonants and morphemes of Indo-European can be related to the “strong” and “weak” consonants and syllables of Proto-Uralic. I think that this is indeed the case. Lubotsky divides the Indo-European roots into four categories, viz. roots without stops, roots with a single stop and no initial laryngeal, roots with a single stop and an initial laryngeal, and roots with two stops (1988: 14). It turns out that derivatives of roots without stops and derivatives of roots with an initial laryngeal and a stop which is contiguous to the syllabic nucleus are either barytones with full grade in the root or oxytones with zero grade in the root, which points to an ancient correlation between ablaut and accentuation. However, in the case of derivatives of roots with a stop which is contiguous to the syllabic nucleus but without an initial laryngeal, it becomes apparent that o-stems are barytone if the root contains *T and oxytone if the root contains *ʔD or *Dh whereas i- and u-stems are oxytone if the root contains *T and barytone if the root contains *ʔD or *Dh, regardless of the ablaut grade of the root (Lubotsky 1988: 169-170). This highly peculiar distribution requires an explanation.

Elsewhere I have proposed the following relative chronology for the IndoEuropean branch of Indo-Uralic on the basis of the internal evidence (K203: 221): A. Indo-European vowel reduction, giving rise to full grade *e under the stress and zero grade elsewhere; B. phonetic lowering of *u (= syllabic *w) to *o, giving rise to a full grade (= non-high) vowel in unstressed syllables; C. analogical introduction of a full grade vowel in unstressed syllables (e.g. in compounds), which automatically yielded new *o; D. introduction of *o in stressed syllables (e.g. by decompounding), resulting in a phonemic opposition between /e/ and /o/ under the stress; E. analogical introduction of full grade *e in unstressed syllables, generalizing the opposition between /e/ and /o/; F. rise of lengthened grade vowels *ē and *ō, yielding the conventional ProtoIndo-European vowel system. The remaining problems are the original place of the stress, the rise of new consonant clusters, and the distribution of the stops. These problems can be solved by the following rule, which must be inserted after I and II but before A-F and thereby separates Indo-European from the Indo-Uralic protolanguage: III. An open strong syllable becomes weak and loses its (primary or secondary) stress to the following syllable, which becomes strong if it is closed (but not if it is open). As a result, rule A yields full grade *e under the stress, which falls on the first strong syllable of a word form, shwa secundum in unstressed closed syllables, and zero in unstressed open syllables. The loss of initial and medial open syllables gave rise to new consonant clusters while full vowels in open syllables could only be preserved word-finally. The expected distribution of fortes and aspirates can now be specified as follows. The two types of Uralic weak stops (before and after the vocalic nucleus of a weak syllable) apparently merged into the Indo-European aspirates while the Uralic strong stops (before the vocalic nucleus of an open syllable) became the Indo-European fortes. Initial stops adopted the same pattern, which resulted in a consonant alternation in roots with fortes before zero grade suffixes and aspirates before full grade suffixes, e.g. *tekm, *dhghem- ‘earth’. After the analogical introduction of *o in unstressed syllables at stage C, we obtain paradigms like the following (cf. Beekes 1995: 178):

nom. acc. loc. abl. inst.

‘winter’ *gheiom *ghiem(m) *ghiem(i) *ghimes *ghimet

‘grandson’ *nepot *nepot(m) *nepot(i) *neptos *neptot

In the nominative *gheiom, which replaced *keim, the full grade suffix was apparently introduced from the oblique form at this stage, while nom. *nepot and obl. *nepot- may represent an earlier paradigm *nept, *nbhedh-, with generalization of fixed stress on the initial syllable. These examples show how fortes and aspirates could become associated with fixed and mobile stress patterns, respectively. As a result of developments in the verbal system, the nominative had now been replaced by the ablative of animate nouns and the instrumental of inanimate nouns occupying the subject position of transitive verbs, so as to yield an ergative system (cf. K203, with references). After the analogical introduction of stressed *o at stage D, the ergative in *-os, with generalized o-grade replacing e-grade in paradigms with mobile stress, developed its own paradigm, which resulted in the thematic flexion (cf. Beekes 1985: 191-195). This paradigm had zero grade vocalism in the root at that stage. Since fortes and aspirates were now associated with barytone and oxytone stress, respectively, we find a discrepancy between the ablaut grade (which was determined by the derivation) and the accentuation (which was determined by the root structure). The Indo-European proto-language developed an opposition between agent nouns with final stress (reflecting the original ergative) and action nouns with radical stress (representing earlier root nouns), both with o-grade in the root. We can assume that this development started before unstressed e-grade was introduced at stage E. In the historical material, the ablaut grade is evenly distributed over barytones and oxytones while the accentuation is still closely linked to the consonantal root structure. Counting the certain examples of o-stem derivatives with a single contiguous stop and no initial laryngeal in Greek, we find 4 instances of e-grade in the root, all of them oxytones with *ʔD or *Dh and therefore clearly secondary, 11 instances with o-grade, 10 instances with zero grade, and 3 oxytones with an a-diphthong in the root (cf. Lubotsky 1988: 138). Thus, we clearly have to assume original zero grade in this formation, regardless of the root structure. The situation with the i- and u-stems was different because the oblique form of the suffix *-ey, *-ew was evidently strong at the outset, so that the analogical introduction of unstressed *o at stage C yielded paradigms like the following:

nom. acc. loc. abl. inst.

‘arm’ *bheʕghu *bhʕgheu(m) *bhʕghew(i) *bhʕgheus *bhʕgheut

‘thin’ *tenʕu *tenʕou(m) *tenʕow(i) *tenʕous *tenʕout

These paradigms may have replaced earlier *peʕku, *bhʕghew- and *tenʕu, *dhnʕew-, respectively. The differentiation between an ergative in *-s and an ablative in *-os in paradigms with fixed stress after stage C now gave rise to a new ablative *tenʕuos beside the ergative *tenʕous whereas paradigms with mobile stress created a new ergative in *-is, *-us beside the ablative in *-eis, *-eus, later also a new accusative in *-im, *-um. After stage D, accentual mobility with radical ablaut could be restored in paradigms with fortes in the root, yielding stressed *-oi-, *-ou- in the accusative and the ergative and zero grade *-i-, *-u- before the stressed ending of the ablative *-os (cf. Beekes 1995: 181). There was no differentiation between ergative and ablative (nor between nominative and accusative) in the neuter gender, where the instrumental was used instead of the ergative with transitive verbs. We have now arrived at the paradoxical stage where original paradigms with fixed stress have developed full accentual mobility through the creation of a new ablative in *-os beside the ergative in *-s after a full grade suffix while original paradigms with mobile stress tend to become barytones through the creation of a new ergative in *-s and an analogical accusative in *-m on the basis of the root-stressed nominative beside the original ablative in *-s after a stressed suffix. This explains Lubotsky’s remarkable discovery that i- and u-stems are oxytone if the root contains *T and barytone if the root contains *ʔD or *Dh. It is an indirect consequence of the Indo-Uralic consonant gradation. Lubotsky states that 12 of the 14 i- and u-stems with *T in the root have radical zero grade in Sanskrit (1988: 174). In fact, all 26 certain examples of i- and u-stem derivatives of triconsonantal roots with a single contiguous stop and no initial laryngeal in Sanskrit have radical zero grade except 2× harṣ- beside hṛṣ- ‘rejoice’ (cf. Lubotsky 1988: 55). The 16 instances with biconsonantal roots also have zero grade except 2× tan- ‘spread’ and carú-, hári-, hánu-, jásu-, sáhyu-, mádhu-, váhni-, and yájyu- beside íṣṭi- ‘sacrifice’. All of these formations would be morphologically awkward if they had radical zero grade, so that we can safely assume analogical restoration of full grade in the root in these instances. There was no such reason to introduce an analogical full grade of the root in bhṛtí-, dṛ́ti-, ghṛ́ṇi-, jíti-, gáti- or derivatives of triconsonantal roots. It follows that all of these i- and u-stem derivatives may have had original zero grade in the root, regardless of the root structure, as was the case with the o-stem derivatives. This supports the view expressed above that the case forms in *-is, *-us, *-im, *-um

replaced earlier ergatives and accusatives with full grade suffixes on the analogy of an earlier root-stressed nominative. Thus far I have left the rise of the glottalic consonants out of consideration because this problem requires a separate treatment. I suspect that the root-final glottalics reflect original consonant stems (cf. in this connection Helimski 1995: 31 = 2000: 178). This is in accordance with the word-final neutralization of the Indo-European stops into glottalics, e.g. Latin quod, Old High German hwaz ‘what’, and would explain the virtual absence of the glottalics in Indo-European word formation. For the root-initial glottalics I think of prefixes which may have left a trace in the glottalization (cf. in this connection Rousseau 1990). The matter cannot be pursued here. The theory of Indo-Uralic consonant gradation proposed here offers an explanation for several other sets of data which remain to be explored. An obvious example is the alternation between fortes and aspirates in IndoEuropean word formation, e.g. *-tro-, *-tlo- beside *-dhro-, *-dhlo-. A less obvious example is the alternation between the suffixes -ok- and -k- in Russian vysókij ‘high’, širókij ‘broad’, glubókij ‘deep’, dalëkij ‘distant’ and nízkij ‘low’, úzkij ‘narrow’, mélkij ‘shallow’, blízkij ‘near’, which are accentually strong and weak, respectively (cf. Dybo 1968: 155-158 on the latter). The difference between original *-o(k)- and *-u(k)- can be derived from an Indo-Uralic alternation between anteconsonantal (IE strong) *-w- which was syllabified to *-u- at stage A and lowered to *-o- at stage B and antevocalic (IE weak) *-w- which remained consonantal at stage A and was syllabified to *-u- at a later stage. The semantic differentiation is secondary, as is clear from Lithuanian platùs ‘broad’, gilùs ‘deep’ versus siaũras ‘narrow’, žẽmas ‘low’. The corresponding front vowel suffix *-ik- (Russian -c-) is strong in Slavic (cf. Dybo 1968: 174-181), evidently because *-i- was not lowered to *-e- at stage B and the strong variant was generalized. The suffixes *-in- and *-isk- were weak in Baltic and Slavic (ibidem: 152-155 and 214-216).

INDO-URALIC AND ALTAIC Elsewhere I have argued that the Indo-European verbal system can be understood in terms of its Indo-Uralic origins because the reconstructed IndoEuropean endings can be derived from combinations of Indo-Uralic morphemes by a series of well-motivated phonetic and analogic developments (K203). Moreover, I have claimed (K213) that the Proto-Uralic consonant gradation accounts for the peculiar correlations between Indo-European root structure and accentuation discovered by Lubotsky (1988). My reconstruction of the Indo-Uralic phonological system is essentially the same as Sammallahti's for Proto-Uralic (1988), except for the fact that I reconstruct palatalized resonants *r' and *l' for his dental spirants *ð and *ð'. In particular, I think that the large number of Indo-European plosives is the result of a secondary development. Though it is quite possible that Indo-Uralic had a larger number of consonants than can be reconstructed for Proto-Uralic, I see no compelling evidence for this. The simplest assumption is that the Indo-Uralic protolanguage was identical with Proto-Uralic. Indeed, it seems possible to derive Nivkh (Gilyak) from the same proto-language, as I have indicated elsewhere (K205). As far as I can see, both Indo-Uralic and Nivkh (Gilyak) belong to the larger Uralo-Siberian language family which is now partly reconstructed by Fortescue (1998) and Seefloth (2000) on the basis of evidence from UraloYukagir, Chukotko-Kamchatkan and Eskimo-Aleut. All of these languages belong to Greenberg's Eurasiatic language family (2000), which in addition comprises Altaic (Turkic, Mongolian, Tungusic), Korean, Japanese and Ainu. There can nowadays be little doubt about the reality of an Altaic language family including Korean and Japanese (see especially Robbeets 2003), though the reconstruction of Proto-Altaic is extremely difficult because of its very large time depth. The position of Ainu remains unclear (at least to me). It is easy to criticize Greenberg's methodology, but this leaves the basic question about the correctness of his Eurasiatic hypothesis open (see now Georg & Vovin 2003). One should regard his list of grammatical elements, like Pokorny's Indo-European dictionary (1959) and Starostin's Altaic dictionary (2003), as a collection of possible rather than actual cognates which must be subjected to further analysis. My reconstruction of Indo-Uralic retains 27 of Greenberg's 68 grammatical elements, and I find 12 out of these 27 in Nivkh (Gilyak). We may wonder how many of these can now be reconstructed for Altaic. Here I shall take Starostin's list of Proto-Altaic grammatical elements

(2003: 221-229) as my point of departure. I shall refer to Greenberg's numbering as G1-G60. Starostin reconstructs personal pronouns 1sg. *bi, 1pl. *ba, *bu, obl. *min-, *man-, *mun-, 2sg. *si, 2pl. *su, obl. *sin-, *sun-, Mongolian 2sg. či < *thi and 2pl. ta < *tha. Besides, there are forms with a velar nasal in the first and a dental nasal in the second person, which “may have originally been restricted to some oblique cases” (Starostin 2003: 225). It seems to me that these forms are compatible with Indo-Uralic G1 *mi ‘I’, *me ‘we’, G4 *ti ‘thou’, *te ‘you’, G54 *-u ‘self’ and G25 *-n genitive (cf. K203: 221, 225). The Indo-Uralic *m- may have spread from the genitive if it was not the phonetic reflex of an original labial plosive. The Altaic forms with a velar and a dental nasal may reflect *mn- and *tn- with syncope before a following suffix. The alternation between *s- and *th- in Altaic suggests that we must start from 2sg. *si < *thi and 2pl. *tha, with restoration of the plosive in Mongolian and generalization of the fricative in Tungusic; the form is limited to the singular in Turkic (where the plural is *siŕ) and Japanese and unattested in Korean. The assibilation of *ti to *si is also found in the Indo-European branch of Indo-Uralic (cf. K203: 221) and in modern Finnish. Starostin reconstructs demonstrative pronouns *sV, *ko, *la, *o ‘this’ and *čha, *e, *i, *tha, *the ‘that’; I reconstruct Indo-Uralic demonstratives G8 *i/e, G11 *t- and G12 *s-. If the reconstruction of Proto-Uralic *ti ‘this’ and *tu ‘that’ is correct, it is possible that Proto-Altaic *sV ‘this’ and *tha ‘that’ are the result of a secondary development. However this may be, the identification of IndoEuropean *so with Finnish hän ‘he, she’ < *s- seems to be perfect. Thus, Altaic *e, *i, *tha, *the, *sV can be identified with Indo-Uralic *i/e, *t-, *s- while Altaic *o may be compared with G54 *u (cf. K203: 225). It is possible that the latter is also found as a suffix in the stem *meno ‘self, body’ which functions as a reflexive pronoun. The Altaic interrogative pronoun *kha ‘who’ may be identical with the Indo-Uralic interrogative G60 *k-. The Altaic plural suffix *-th- can be identified with the Indo-Uralic plural suffix G15 *-t. The Altaic accusative suffix *-be may be identical with the IndoUralic accusative G24 *-m if the latter is the phonetic reflex of an original labial plosive, as in the first person pronoun. The Altaic genitive has a velar, dental or palatal nasal, which points to *-n followed by other suffixes. This is supported by the fact that *-nV is also found as a dative, locative and instrumental case suffix. As in Indo-European (cf. K203: 222), it appears that the genitive G25 *-n developed into a general oblique singular ending in Altaic. Alternatively, it may have merged with the locative G30 *-n which may be compared with the Altaic dative, locative and instrumental suffix *-nV. The locative G29 *-ru can be identified with the Altaic directive suffix *-rV. Other case suffixes may be compared with the dative G26 *-ka and the ablative G33 *-t. Starostin reconstructs partitive *-ga, dative or directive *-khV,

and allative *-gV, all of which may be related to the Indo-Uralic dative suffix *-ka. Since the Indo-European evidence points to a number of different vowels after the velar consonant (cf. K203: 224), it is quite possible that several cognates of the Altaic suffixes merged in Indo-European. Similarly, the Altaic dative or locative *-du, *-da, comitative or equative *-čha, and instrumental or ablative *-ǰV (which function as an ablative in Turkic, Mongolian and Japanese, respectively) may all be related to the Indo-Uralic ablative suffix *-t, which could be followed by other suffixes (cf. K203: 222). Indeed, the distinction between Japanese genitive no and dative or locative ni and between Turkic dative *-ka and Tungusic directive *-ki suggests that the locative G31 *-i may have been added to other suffixes so as to provide a (stronger) locative meaning, in the same way as Indo-European replaced the original ablative ending by *-ti in its local use in order to differentiate it from its instrumental use (cf. K203: 222). The Altaic deverbative nominal suffixes *-m- and *-l- (Starostin 2003: 177, 187) can be identified with the Indo-Uralic nominalizer G39 *-m- and participle G45 *-l-. The Altaic gerund *-jV and past tense *-thV (Starostin 2003: 227) may be identical with the Indo-Uralic nominalizer G38 *-i- and participle G43 *-t-. The combination of the Altaic desiderative or inchoative *-s- and factitive or intensive *-g- (Starostin 2003: 207, 209) may be found in the Indo-Uralic conative G53 *-sk-. The Altaic *-s- is also found by itself in Indo-European and may be identical with the IE root *es- ‘to be’ (cf. K161: 169). I am inclined to identify the Altaic negative verb *e-, Mongolian ese ‘not’, with the Uralic negative verb *e- (cf. Collinder 1960: 247) and the IE root *es-, with loss of the original negative particle G56 *ne in Altaic (as in modern French). The ProtoAltaic verb *era ‘to be’ (Starostin 2003: 515) is evidently a derivative of the same root. Thus, I find evidence for 20 Indo-Uralic grammatical elements in Altaic: first person G1 *m, second person G4 *t, demonstratives G8 *i/e, G11 *t, G12 *s, plural G15 *t, accusative G24 *m, genitive G25 *n, dative G26 *ka, locatives G29 *ru, G30 *n, G31 *i, ablative G33 *t, nominalizers G38 *i and G39 *m, participles G43 *t and G45 *l, conative G53 *sk, reflexive G54 *u/w, and interrogative G60 *k. I conclude that the reality of an Eurasiatic language family is very probable. The historical relationship between the Altaic and Uralo-Siberian language families remains to be specified. We must reckon with the possibility that these are the two main branches of the Eurasiatic macro-family. Further research should therefore aim at separate reconstructions of Proto-Altaic and ProtoUralo-Siberian before other possible inner and outer connections are taken into consideration. Fortescue dates the dissolution of the Uralo-Siberian and Uralo-Yukagir language families to 8000 and 6000 BP or 6000 and 4000 BC, respectively (1998: 182, 219, and maps 3 and 4). Sammallahti dates the dissolution of Proto-

Uralic and Proto-Finno-Ugric to the 5th and 4th millennia BC, respectively (1988: 480), and these are identical with my datings for the dissolution of IndoHittite and of nuclear Indo-European (K203: 217). While I date the dissolution of Indo-Uralic to the end of the 7th millennium (ibidem), Starostin dates the earliest split of Proto-Altaic to the 6th millennium (2003: 236). We may conclude that Proto-Indo-Uralic and Proto-Altaic may have been contemporaries (6000-5500), that Proto-Uralic and Proto-Uralo-Yukagir may have been the same thing and contemporaneous with Proto-Indo-Hittite (4500-4000), and that Proto-Finno-Ugric and nuclear Proto-Indo-European may again have been contemporary languages (3500-3000). This puts the dissolution of the Uralo-Siberian language family in the 7th millennium. It now becomes attractive to identify the latter with the abrupt climate change of 8200 BP or 6200 BC, when severe cold struck the northern hemisphere for more than a century. The catastrophic nature of this disastrous event agrees well with the sudden dispersal and large-scale lexical replacement which are characteristic of the Uralo-Siberian languages.

INDO-URALIC AND ALTAIC REVISITED After Dybo & Starostin’s comprehensive rebuttal (2008) of Vovin’s critique (2005), one may wonder if it is useful to continue a debate which seems to lead nowhere and can only deter younger scholars from entering the field of Altaic studies. Yet I think that progress can be made by ending the controversy and developing a positive attitude to new perspectives. On the one hand, one cannot expect radical breakthroughs in a field where very few scholars are working on a number of extremely heterogeneous cultural traditions. On the other hand, the dramatic progress of Indo-Uralic studies in recent decades shows that there is room for unexpected results. Dybo & Starostin’s civil tone and admirable restraint contrast starkly with Vovin’s vicious rhetoric and personal insults. In my view, the Altaic controversy can be ended by abandoning emphasis on separate etymologies and shifting the attention to morphological correspondences and questions of chronology. The Vovin controversy can perhaps be ended by temporarily excluding this author from the debate and giving him a chance to reconsider the volatility of his position and the damage he has inflicted on the field by his offensive style of writing. In the meantime it is important to stimulate younger scholars to take part in a discussion which is traditionally dominated by an elderly generation. Dybo & Starostin claim (2008: 135) that “if genetic relationship between two or more languages can be demonstrated on morphological evidence, it will inevitably show up in the basic lexicon as well” whereas “if genetic relationship can be demonstrated on lexical evidence, it will not necessarily be detected within the compared languages’ morphology as well”. The problem is that critics of the Altaic hypothesis find most etymologies unattractive or suspicious and feel that the corpus of Altaic comparisons comprises not only possible cognates but also obvious loanwords, accidental lookalikes and even totally irrelevant non-lookalikes (as one colleague put it in an e-mail message to me). This assessment of the Altaic etymological dictionary is partly based on a misunderstanding. Like Pokorny’s etymological dictionary of the IndoEuropean languages (1959), Starostin’s dictionary is an essentially achronic collection of materials which can be used for analysis and reconstruction. Nobody today would subscribe to Pokorny’s reconstructed forms, and the same may be the fate of Starostin’s in the future. The quality of an etymology becomes more difficult to assess as we move deeper into the past because more unforeseen things may have happened. This is why there is reason to attach less value to separate etymologies at a larger time depth, unless there is independent evidence for the chronological layer to which they may belong, such as

geographical distribution or relative chronology of specific changes. Note that Starostin et al. date the earliest split of Proto-Altaic to the sixth millennium BC (2003: 236), which means that Proto-Indo-Uralic and Proto-Altaic may have been spoken around the same time. When we look at language interference in bilingual communities, it appears that there is a marked difference in the ease of linguistic borrowing between grammar and lexicon, between bound and free morphemes, and between verbs and nouns. As a result, the older strata of a language are better preserved in the grammatical system than in the lexical stock, better in morphology than in phonology or syntax, better in verb stems and pronouns than in nouns and numerals. The wide attestation of the Indo-European numerals must be attributed to the development of trade which accompanied the increased mobility of the Indo-Europeans at the time of their expansions. Numerals do not belong to the basic vocabulary of a neolithic culture, as is clear from their absence in Proto-Uralic and from the spread of Chinese numerals throughout East Asia. The inequality between different parts of a language in linguistic borrowing is of particular importance when we are dealing with distant affinity. In a study of the earliest contacts between the Indo-European and Uralic language families (1986), Rédei lists 64 words which were supposedly borrowed from Indo-European into Uralic at an early date. The material is divided into three groups: 7 Indo-European words which are attested in both Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic, 18 Indo-European or Indo-Iranian words which are attested in Finno-Ugric but not in Samoyedic, and 39 Indo-Iranian words which are found neither in Ugric nor in Samoyedic. Now it turns out that the number of verbs in the oldest material is too large to support the hypothesis that they were borrowed: verbs constitute 43% of the first group, 28% of the second group, and 5% of the third group. This is strong evidence for the thesis that the oldest layer was in fact inherited from an Indo-Uralic proto-language. Though the material is very small, the case for an original genetic relationship is particularly strong because we are dealing with basic verbs meaning ‘to give’, ‘to wash’, ‘to bring’, ‘to drive’, ‘to do’, ‘to lead’, ‘to take’ (cf. K112). Moreover, it is difficult to see how Proto-Indo-European words could have been borrowed into Proto-Uralic if the Indo-Europeans lived in the South Russian steppe when the ancestors of the Finno-Ugrians and the Samoyeds lived on the eastern side of the Ural mountains. The earliest contacts between Indo-European and Uralic languages must probably be identified with the eastward expansion of the Indo-Iranians and the simultaneous spread of the Finno-Ugrians to the southwest. Thus, it appears that we do not need a large number of obvious cognates, which cannot be expected in the case of distant linguistic affinity, in order to establish a genetic relationship between languages. Dybo & Starostin argue (2008: 128) that “it is unreasonable to expect to be able to reconstruct paradigmatic morphology when dealing with

macrofamilies” because a morphological system can undergo an overwhelming collapse over a relatively short period of time, as happened in the case of Classical Latin. However, this does not generally hold for the separate elements which make up the morphological system. The advantage of morphology over the lexicon is that it offers two types of chronological clue: in addition to sound changes which affect both lexical and morphological elements, the development of morphosyntactic categories poses obvious restrictions on the genesis and development of paradigmatic systems. In my reconstruction of the Indo-Uralic verb (K203) I have argued that the Indo-European verbal system can be derived from combinations of Indo-Uralic morphemes by a series of well-motivated phonetic and analogic developments. It is precisely the explanation of the IndoEuropean system of paradigms in terms of its Indo-Uralic origins that corroborates the reconstruction of the original morphemes. There is additional evidence for Indo-Uralic in the relation between ProtoIndo-European root structure and accentuation discovered by Lubotsky (1988: 169-170). It appears that in the case of derivatives of roots with a stop which is contiguous to the syllabic nucleus but without an initial laryngeal, o-stems are barytone if the root contains a voiceless obstruent and oxytone if the root contains a voiced obstruent whereas i- and u-stems are oxytone if the root contains a voiceless obstruent and barytone if the root contains a voiced obstruent, regardless of the ablaut grade of the root. This highly peculiar distribution can be explained by the assumption that Indo-European underwent the “rhythmic” and “syllabic” consonant gradations reconstructed for Proto-Uralic (cf. Helimski 1995: 24-26 = 2000: 172-174) followed by a vowel gradation which shifted the stress toward the end of a word form and gave rise to the ablaut system (cf. K213: 165). Here again, Indo-Uralic offers an explanation for a state of affairs attested in Indo-European which remains unexplained if the Uralic data are not taken into account. Since the two Uralic consonant gradations were phonetic developments, one could suggest that their operation in Indo-European might be the result of substratum influence, or conversely. This suggestion meets with two difficulties. Firstly, the common chronology of the consonant gradations rather points to a shared innovation at a time of structural similarity. Secondly, the hypothesis of substratum influence before the Indo-Europeans arrived in Europe and acquired their highly characteristic linguistic features is arbitrary. It is definitely more probable that we are dealing with a single language family which split up when the IndoEuropeans moved westwards while their relatives stayed behind. My reconstruction of the Indo-Uralic phonological system is essentially the same as Sammallahti's for Proto-Uralic (1988), except for the fact that I reconstruct palatalized resonants *r' and *l' for his dental spirants *ð and *ð'. In particular, I think that the large number of Indo-European plosives is the result of a secondary development. The simplest assumption is that the Indo-Uralic proto-

language was identical with Proto-Uralic. Indeed, it seems possible to derive Nivkh (Gilyak) from the same proto-language, as I have indicated elsewhere (K205). Uhlenbeck has argued (1935a) that Proto-Indo-European consisted of two unrelated components, which he calls A and B. The first component comprises pronouns, verbal roots, and derivational suffixes, whereas the second contains isolated words which are not related to verbal roots, such as numerals, some kinship terms, and many names of body parts, animals and trees. Uhlenbeck compares A with Uralic and Altaic and attributes irregular features such as heteroclitic inflection and grammatical gender to B. The Indo-European verbal system appears to combine Uralic flexional morphemes with Caucasian syntactic patterns. The rise of the ergative construction (which gave rise to the paradigm of the nominal o-stems, cf. Beekes 1985), grammatical gender and adjectival agreement can be attributed to North Caucasian influence and may have proceeded as indicated by Pedersen (1907). These views can be unified with Gimbutas’ theory (e.g. 1985) that the Indo-Europeans moved from a primary homeland north of the Caspian Sea to a secondary homeland north of the Black Sea. What we have to take into account is the typological similarity of Proto-Indo-European to the North-West Caucasian languages. If this similarity can be attributed to areal factors (cf. K130: 94), we may think of Indo-European as a branch of Indo-Uralic which was transformed under the influence of a North Caucasian substratum. We may then locate the Indo-Uralic homeland south of the Ural Mountains in the seventh millennium BC (cf. Mallory 1989: 192f.). Having established the probability of an Indo-Uralic proto-language, we can now turn to the question if the reconstructed morphemes can be identified in other languages as well. This is indeed plausible for Eskimo (cf. Uhlenbeck 1935b, Fortescue 1998, Seefloth 2000) and Nivkh. It may therefore be appropriate to look for the same elements in the Altaic languages. Here I shall first list those items adduced by Greenberg (2000) as grammatical evidence for Eurasiatic which I reconstruct for Proto-Indo-Uralic: first person *m, second person *t, demonstrative *i/e, demonstrative *t, demonstrative *s, dual *ki, plural *t, plural *i, accusative *m, genitive *n,

dative *ka, locative *ru, locative *n, locative *i, ablative *t, diminutive *k, nominalizer *i, nominalizer *m, participle *n, participle *t, participle *nt, participle *l, verbal noun *s, conative *sk, reflexive *u/w, negative *n, interrogative *k. I have identified 12 of these 27 elements in Nivkh (K205), viz. first person *m, second person *t, demonstrative *i/e, demonstrative *t, demonstrative *s, dual *ki, plural *t, genitive *n, participle *nt, participle *l, verbal noun *s, reflexive *u/w. Moreover, I have suggested that we can add adessive *pi here on the basis of Indo-European *bhi ‘near’, Nivkh fid' ‘be in a place’, phiŋ ‘inhabitant’. For the 1st and 2nd person pronouns I reconstruct the following IndoUralic paradigms: nom. gen.

‘I/me’ *mi *min

‘myself’ *mu *mun

‘we/us’ *me *men

‘thou/thee’ ‘yourself’ *ti *tu *tin *tun

‘ye/you’ *te *ten

In Indo-European, the assibilation of *ti to *si and the rise of ablaut which reduced all non-final vowels to *e under the stress and zero grade elsewhere resulted in the following outcome: independent dependent

‘I/me’ *mi, *me-, *m*men, *mn-

‘myself’ *mu, *me-, *m*men, *mn-

‘we/us’ *me, *me-, *m*men, *mn-

independent dependent

‘thou/thee’ *si, *se-, *s*sen, *sn-

‘yourself’ *tu, *te-, *t*ten, *tn-

‘ye/you’ *te, *te-, *t*ten, *tn-

It is clear that this system could not be maintained. Moreover, the stem form *s- < *ti for the second person interfered with the Indo-Uralic demonstrative *s-, which is preserved in the Indo-European anaphoric pronoun *so. The large-

scale homophony was eliminated by the use of deictic *ʔe ‘this’ for the first person singular and *ue ‘self’ for a person who is contrasted with another (third) person and by the suffixation of *-ʔ < *-ki for the dual and *-i, later *-s < *-ti for the plural. This resulted in such forms as *ʔme ‘this-me’, *tue ‘thee-self’, *sue ‘him-self’ (cf. K203: 225 and K223: 9), also *ueʔ, *uei ‘(our)selves’ in contrast with outsiders (inclusive meaning) versus *(m)neʔ, *(m)nes ‘we’ in contrast with your people (exclusive meaning), *ueʔ, *ues ‘you’ in contrast with other people, then *uʔe ‘you two’ in contrast with ‘them’ and *nʔue ‘we two’ in contrast with both ‘you’ and ‘them’. These forms must have existed at an early stage already because the o-vocalism of *noʔ, *nos, *uoʔ, *uos originated in their use as clitics and we find the corresponding zero grade in acc.pl. *nsme, *usme, where *-me can hardly be anything else than the full grade Indo-Uralic case particle *me. On the other hand, the forms *teue and *seue show the continued existence of *te, *se, *ue as separate words at the stage when full grade *e in unstressed syllables became possible. It appears that gen. *men ‘me’ was remodeled to *mene on the basis of *teue and *seue. I think that dat. *mighi represents original *mibhi with dissimilation of the labial articulation because I cannot otherwise explain the differentiation from *tubhi and *subhi. These forms seem to preserve Indo-Uralic *mi ‘I’, *tu ‘thou-self’, and *pi ‘at’. In Nivkh we find 1sg. *mi, 1du. *men-ki (‘the two of us’), 1pl. *me-t, 2sg. *ti, 3sg. *i/e, *i-w, reflexive *pi-, reciprocal *u- (cf. K205). We now turn to the Altaic languages. Starostin et al. reconstruct personal pronouns 1sg. *bi, 1pl. *ba ~ *bu, obl. *min-, *man- ~ *mun-, 2sg. *si, 2pl. *su, obl. *sin-, *sun-, adding Mongolian 2sg. či < *thi, 2pl. ta < *tha, which are “no doubt archaic” (2003: 225). These forms are strongly reminiscent of Indo-Uralic 1st person *mi, *me, *mu, gen. *min, *men, *mun, 2nd person *ti, *tu, gen. *tin, *tun, and 2sg. *ti, 2pl. *te, respectively. The alternation between *s- and *th- in Altaic suggests that we must start from 2sg. *si < *thi and 2pl. *tha, with restoration of the plosive in Mongolian and generalization of the fricative in Tungusic; the form is limited to the singular in Turkic (where the plural is *siŕ) and Japanese and unattested in Korean. The assibilation of *ti to *si is also found in the Indo-European branch of Indo-Uralic (cf. K203: 221). In the 1st person form, Indo-Uralic *m- may have spread from the genitive if it was not the phonetic reflex of an original labial plosive, e.g. prenasalized *mb or preglottalized *ʔb. Besides, Starostin et al. reconstruct 1st person *ŋa and 2nd person *na, which “may have originally been restricted to some oblique cases” (2003: 225), largely on the basis of the Korean and Japanese evidence. These forms may reflect *mn- and *tn- with syncope before a following suffix, as in the Indo-European forms reconstructed above. If these considerations are correct, we arrive at the following reconstruction of the original personal pronouns in Indo-Uralic, Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic,

Koreanic and Japonic (cf. also Janhunen 2003: 18, Gorelova 2002: 216, Benzing 1955: 107, Robbeets 2005 s.v.): PIU *mi *min *mu *mun *me *men *ti *tin *tu *tun *te *ten

PTk *bi-

*si-

PMo *bi *min-, *n*ba *man*či *čin-

PTg *bi *min *bu *mun *ba *man *si *sin *su *sun

PK

PJ

*n*u-

*a *ba

*n-

*si *na

*ta *tan-

From this table it appears that the Altaic personal pronouns can largely be derived from the ones reconstructed for Indo-Uralic except for the initial *b- in the first person forms. Starostin et al. reconstruct demonstrative pronouns *s-, *ko, *la, *o ‘this’ and *čha, *e, *i, *tha (*the) ‘that’. It appears that Altaic *e, *i, *tha (*the), *s-, *o may be identical with the Indo-Uralic demonstratives *i/e, *t-, *s-, and reflexive *u: PIU *i

PTk *ın-

*e *t-

*an*ti-

*s*u/w

*-sı *o(l)

PMo *i *in*e*en*te*ten-

PTg *i *in*e-

PK *i

PJ *i

*a-

*a-

*ta-

*tj-

*to-

*on-

*u-

*so*o-

The Altaic interrogative pronoun *kha- ‘who’, PTk *ka-, *ke-, PMo *ka-, *ke-, PTg *xa-, PK *ka, PJ *ka, may be identical with the Indo-Uralic interrogative *k-. The Altaic plural suffix *-th- can be identified with the Indo-Uralic plural suffix *-t. The Altaic accusative suffix *-be may be identical with the Indo-Uralic accusative *-m if the latter is the phonetic reflex of an original labial plosive, as in the first person pronoun. The Altaic genitive has a velar, dental or palatal nasal, which points to *-n followed by other suffixes. This is supported by the fact that *-n- is also found as a dative, locative and instrumental case suffix. As

in Indo-European (cf. K203: 222), it appears that the genitive *-n developed into a general oblique singular ending in Altaic. Alternatively, it may have merged with the locative *-n which may be compared with the Altaic dative, locative and instrumental suffix *-n-. The locative *-ru can be identified with the Altaic directive suffix *-r-. Other case suffixes may be compared with the dative *-ka and the ablative *-t. Starostin et al. reconstruct partitive *-ga, dative or directive *-kh-, and allative *-g-, all of which may be related to the Indo-Uralic dative suffix *-ka. Since the Indo-European evidence points to a number of different vowels after the velar consonant (cf. K203: 224), it is quite possible that several cognates of the Altaic suffixes merged in Indo-European. Similarly, the Altaic dative or locative *-du, *-da, comitative or equative *-čha, and instrumental or ablative *-ǰ- (which function as an ablative in Turkic, Mongolian and Japanese, respectively) may all be related to the Indo-Uralic ablative suffix *-t, which could be followed by other suffixes (cf. K203: 222). Indeed, the distinction between Japanese genitive no and dative or locative ni and between Turkic dative *-ka and Tungusic directive *-ki suggests that the locative *-i may have been added to other suffixes so as to provide a (stronger) locative meaning, in the same way as Indo-European replaced the original ablative ending by *-ti in its local use in order to differentiate it from its instrumental use (cf. K203: 222). This results in the following comparisons (cf. Starostin et al. 2003: 221, Erdal 2004: 168-179, Janhunen 2003: 14, Benzing 1955: 78-89, Robbeets 2005 s.v.): PIU pl. *-t acc. *-m gen. *-n dat. *-ka loc. *-ru loc. *-n loc. *-i abl. *-t

PTk *-t

PMo *-d

*-ŋ *-g *-ka *-ga *-ru *-n

*-n

*-da *-ča

*-ga *-ru *-dur *-ča

PTg *-ta, *-te *-ba, *-be *-ngī *-ga *-kī *-gī

PK *-tır *-ń

PJ *-tati *-bo *-n *-nka

*-ro *-du *-ǰi

*-ni *-tu *-to *-du

Here the large variety of case endings in the Altaic languages cannot simply be derived from the ones reconstructed for Indo-Uralic, which may perhaps reflect a reduction of the Altaic system. Though some of the comparisons may have to be abandoned (cf. especially Robbeets 2005: 170-173 on PJ *-tati, *-to, *-tu, *-du), the considerable agreement between form and meaning of the suffixes suggests a common origin of plural *-t-, accusative *-m/b-, genitive *-n, dative *-ka, *-ga, and local cases *-ru, *-n-, *-i, *-t-, *-du.

If the equations adduced above are correct, they render a genetic relationship between Indo-Uralic and the separate Altaic languages probable. Since Proto-Indo-Uralic seems to be both phonologically and morphologically simpler than what we find in the Altaic languages, Indo-Uralic may have been either a sister or a daughter of an Altaic proto-language. In order to establish a possible chronology we now turn to the verb in the Altaic languages. As was indicated above, I reconstruct Proto-Indo-Uralic nominalizers *i and *m, participles *n, *t, *nt, *l, verbal noun *s, and conative *sk. The following deverbal nominals appear to have correspondences in the Altaic languages (cf. Starostin et al. 2003: 177, 187, 227): PIU *-i *-m *-t *-l

PTk *-ja *-m *-t*-l

PMo *-ja *-m

PTg

*-l

*-l

PK *-ja *-m *-t-

PJ *-i *-t-

Besides, I have suggested (K241 in fine) that the Indo-European present stem formatives *-(e)i-, *-(e)m-, *-(e)s-, *-n-, *-t/dh-, *-sk- represent original roots of simple verbs meaning ‘to go’, ‘to take’, ‘to be’, ‘to lead’, ‘to put’, ‘to try’, cf. Latin i-, em-, es-, Sanskrit nī-, dhā-, Tocharian A ske-, B skai-, and may be compared with Uralic inchoative *-j-, fientive *-m-, *-n-, causative and momentaneous *-t- (cf. Collinder 1960: 272-281). The suffix *-(e)s- is strongly reminiscent of the Altaic desiderative/inchoative *-s- (cf. Starostin et al. 2003: 206f. and K254) while the Indo-European root *es- may be identical with Altaic *a- (Robbeets 2005: 380, 468) and *er- ‘to be’ (Starostin et al. 2003: 515), PTk *er-, PMo *a-, *ere-, PTg *eri-, PK *a-, PJ *a-, *ar- (cf. K161). I am inclined to identify the Altaic negative verb *e-, PTg *e-, PMo ese ‘not’ (Starostin et al. 2003: 488) with the Uralic negative verb *e- (cf. Collinder 1960: 247) and the Indo-European root *es-, with loss of the original negative particle *ne in the Altaic languages (as in modern French, e.g. c’est pas vrai). Robbeets has recently (2007) argued that the relative order of verbal stem formatives in Japanese overlaps with the distributional characteristics of related suffixes in other Altaic languages. Her conclusions are summarized in the following table: effort transform process iconic intention inchoative

PTk *-la*-d*-n*-ki*-k-

PMo *-la*-d*-n*-ki*-ma*-gi-

PTg *-lā*-dā*-na*-ki*-m*-ga-

PK *-no*-ki*-m*-k-

PJ *-ra*-da*-na*-ka*-ma*-ka-

The shape of attested chains of suffixes generally follows the order which can be reconstructed as *-la-da-na-ki-ma-ga-. If this is correct, it provides strong evidence for an Altaic proto-language which differed from Indo-Uralic. While the suffix *-la- can be compared with Uralic iterative *-l- (cf. Collinder 1960: 275f.), the other suffixes appear to be limited to the Altaic languages. After this discussion of the morphological evidence, we may return to the problem of the lexicon. Arguing against a genetic relationship between the Mongolic and Tungusic languages, Doerfer has presented a detailed analysis of their common vocabulary (1985). Elsewhere I have shown that his material allows of a quite different conclusion (K156). Doerfer’s classification of the Tungusic languages into dialectal areas from west to east differs sharply from the genetic classification of the Tungusic languages. As a result, his Central Tungusic is much more heterogeneous than the other groups. For Central Tungusic, Doerfer removes the words which are found in both North and South Tungusic from the material and lists those words which are found in either North or South Tungusic only. The high number of ancient words in this part of the material casts grave doubts on Doerfer’s thesis that all of them were borrowed from Eastern Evenki, Solon or Manchu at a recent stage. It seems to me that the semantic distribution of the ancient Central Tungusic words with cognates in either North or South Tungusic points to genetic relationship rather than borrowing. In particular, the relatively large number of verbs is difficult to explain under the assumption of borrowing. In her magnum opus (2005), Robbeets eliminates the large majority of etymologies which have been proposed for Japanese words because they may be suspect for a variety of reasons, reducing a corpus of 2055 lexical entries to 359 core etymologies representing 4 pronouns, 170 verbs, 46 adjectives or quality nouns, 83 basic nouns and 56 non-basic nouns. Here again, the large number of verbs requires an explanation if one does not accept her analysis as proof of a genetic relationship between Japanese and the other Altaic languages. It is quite possible, and even probable, that some of the remaining etymologies will have to be abandoned in the future, especially because their number seems to be at variance with the large time depth assumed for the Altaic proto-language. On the other hand, the huge number of etymologies which were rejected out of hand because they might be suspect for one reason or another may comprise many instances where judgment has been too rash. We can only hope that future research will bridge the gap between the historical data of the attested languages and their reconstructed origins. This can only be achieved by training a new generation of scholars with an interest in the chronological aspects of linguistic diversity.

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