Proto-Indo-European -neu-/-nu-: Evidence of an erstwhile auxiliary?

Abstract

It is argued that (a) PIE neu- ‘go, etc.’ acquired metaphorical meanings like ‘do X’, as did other PIE verbs meaning ‘go’ (e.g. *ei-); (b) in late PIE, neu- became encliticized when following objects, and was reanalyzed as a ‘meaningless’ auxiliary, finally becoming a meaningless suffix, in certain lexical environments; and (c) PIE neu- survived as an independent verb in Sanskrit and Greek, and as a meaningless suffix in Indie (as -no-/-nu-), Iranian, Hellenic, Armenian, Germanic, and (in part) Hittite. Evidence for this analysis is drawn from Indie, Hellenic, and Hittite. These claims conflict with a widely accepted analysis of Saussure’s (1879), who maintained that the Sanskrit Class 5 formant -no-/-nu- and its cognates in other languages was an infix -ne-/-n- in roots with final -u (and that Class 5 could thus be viewed as parallel to two other infixed classes in Sanskrit, 7 and 9, the latter with a laryngeal). Evidence against Saussure’s analysis of Class 5 is drawn from Indie and Iranian.