LINGUIST List 23.1408: Diss: Historical Ling/Semantics/Syntax/Sanskrit: Lowe: 'The Syntax and Semantics of Tense-Aspect Stem Participles in Early Rgvedic Sanskrit'

LINGUIST List 23.1408

Tue Mar 20 2012

Diss: Historical Ling/Semantics/Syntax/Sanskrit: Lowe: 'The Syntax and Semantics of Tense-Aspect Stem Participles in Early Rgvedic Sanskrit'

Editor for this issue: Xiyan Wang <xiyanlinguistlist.org>

Date: 20-Mar-2012
From: John Lowe <johnjlowegmail.com>
Subject: The Syntax and Semantics of Tense-Aspect Stem Participles in Early Rgvedic Sanskrit
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Institution: University of Oxford Program: D.Phil. in Linguistics Dissertation Status: Completed Degree Date: 2012

Author: John Jeffrey Lowe

Dissertation Title: The Syntax and Semantics of Tense-Aspect Stem Participles in Early Rgvedic Sanskrit

Linguistic Field(s): Historical Linguistics Semantics Syntax
Subject Language(s): Sanskrit (san) Language Family(ies): Indo-European
Dissertation Director:
Elizabeth Tucker Andreas Willi
Dissertation Abstract:

In this thesis I investigate the syntax and semantics of tense-aspect stemparticiples in the Rgveda, focusing primarily on the data from the earlierbooks II-VII and IX, seeking to establish a comprehensive and coherentanalysis of this category within the linguistic system of Rgvedic Sanskrit.In recent literature tense-aspect stem participles are usually treated assemantically equivalent to finite verbs wherever possible, butcontradictorily where they differ from finite verbs their adjectival natureis emphasized. I argue that tense-aspect stem participles are afundamentally verbal formation and can be treated as inflectional verbforms: they are adjectival verbs rather than verbal adjectives. At the sametime, however, they constitute an independent sub-category of verb formwhich is not necessarily semantically dependent on corresponding finite stems.

I examine the syntactic and semantic properties of tense-aspect stemparticiples both in relation to finite verbal forms and their widersyntactic context, formalizing the evidence in the framework ofLexical-Functional Grammar. Consequently I am able to categorize thesyntactic and semantic deviations which many participles exhibit incomparison to finite verbal forms. I contend that many such forms cannot betreated synchronically (and sometimes diachronically) as participles, butform distinct synchronic categories. My analysis permits a considerablymore refined definition of the category of tense-aspect stem participles,dependent on clear morphological, syntactic and semantic criteria, asopposed to the usual, purely morphological, definition.

From a diachronic perspective I argue that the category of tense-aspectstem participles as found in the Rgveda more closely reflects an inheritedProto Indo-European category of tense-aspect stem participles than isusually assumed. I also reconsider theoretical treatments of participialsyntax and semantics, and develop a more precise typology of non-finiteverb systems which adequately accounts for Sanskrit participles.

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