Old Persian mav‐ and the Evolution of the Inchoative Suffix in Iranian

Bibliographic Data

ID9892135
AuthorsMarco Fattori (0000-0001-5093-9495, “Sapienza” University of Rome Rome Italy, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume68
Issue1
Pages1-14
Publication date2025-02-17
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueIndo-Iranian Journal (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0019-7246 • E-ISSN: 1572-8536
PublisherWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1163/15728536-06801007
OpenAlexW4410439506
LanguageEN
References cited11

In this article the so far unexplained Old Persian verbal form amū θ a ‘he fled’ is interpreted as an imperfect built on an inchoative present stem from the Iranian root * mauH ‐ ‘to move’. Starting from the observation that, in Old Persian, an outcome ‐ θ a ‐ instead of ‐ sa ‐ for the Indo-Iranian suffix *- sća ‐ is phonologically irregular in this position, a morphological explanation is proposed. It is argued that the stem mū θ a ‐ is a recent formation, not inherited from the Proto-Iranian stage. This finding is framed within a broader discussion on the historical development of the inchoative suffix in the Iranian languages, distinguishing between old inchoatives, i.e. formations inherited from a pre-historical stage (Indo-Iranian, sometimes even Proto-Indo-European) and recent inchoatives, i.e. new formations productively built in historical times

Linguistics · Natural language processing · Persian · Suffix · Ancient Near East History · Computer Science · Historical and Linguistic Studies · History · Linguistics and language evolution · Philosophy

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