Grammaticalization Paths of Verbal Prefixes in Slavic and Other Indo-European Branches

Abstract

Grammaticalization of verbal prefixes and the productivity of prefixes are important topics in contemporary Slavic linguistics and are being discussed against the background of their semantic scope. This article draws attention to the semantic scope of prefixes in ancient Indo-European languages that have properties similar to those of Slavic prefixes and are sometimes etymologically related to their Slavic counterparts. Initial steps towards grammaticalization can be observed in Germanic, Celtic, and Latin. Semantic and grammatical functions of Hittite Wackernagel sentence particles of local and deictic origin provide further insights. Complex act perfectives prefixed in za-, po-, pro-, ot-, na- as described by Janda (1985, 2007, and 2013) and the role of quantized verbs will be central to the investigation. The function of dynamic suffixes that play an aspectual role in Slavic will be compared to that of the IE *-sk̑e/o-suffix in Greek, Latin, and Hittite. Although a Slavic aspectual “pair” system did not develop in any of those languages, the properties of the suffixes and their interaction with the prefixation will provide a comparative background to the study of grammaticalization of Slavic aspect.

Keywords:

• Grammaticalization of aspect
• lexical/grammatical affixation
• preverbation
• actionality
• directionality
• measurement
• quantization
• Russian
• Greek
• Latin
• Old Irish
• Hittite