Proto-Indo-European Verbs - Verbal Categories

Verbal Categories

Proto-Indo-European verb lexemes belonged to one of two aspect classes: stative (verbs that depict a state of being; also known as the perfect system) and eventive, the latter of which is broken down into imperfective (verbs depicting ongoing, habitual or repeated action; also known as the present system) and perfective (verbs depicting a completed action or actions viewed as an entire process; also known as the aorist system).

The terminology around the stative, perfective and imperfective aspects can be confusing. The use of these terms here is based on the reconstructed meanings of the corresponding forms in PIE and the terms used broadly in linguistics to refer to aspects with these meanings. In traditional PIE terminology, the forms described here as stative, perfective and imperfective are known as the perfect, aorist and present systems. The present/imperfective system in turn can be conjugated in two tenses, described here as present and past but traditionally known as present and imperfect. The traditional terms are based on the names of the corresponding forms in Ancient Greek (also applied to Sanskrit), and are still commonly encountered. Furthermore, there is a separate secondary-verb form commonly known as the "stative" and marked by a suffix *-eh₁-, which has no connection with the stative/perfect described here.

The following table shows the two systems of terminology.

Each verbal lexeme, especially eventive verbs, took on its own "root aspect", ostensibly according to the semantics of the root, although there are numerous unexplained surprises. Verbal roots whose default meaning was durative, ongoing, or iterative were generally imperfective, while roots whose meaning was punctiliar or discrete were perfective. Affixation of various types was used both to root certain verbs into their default aspects and to switch their aspects. A verb needed no derivational markers when functioning within its own root aspect, but many, if not most, roots were hyper-characterized with an aspect marker in order to emphasize their root aspects: the s-aorist, retained most notably in Greek, in which an -s- is affixed between the root and the personal ending is an example of a marker that typically characterized an aorist. Examples of aspect switching affixes include -éye/_o, sk' e/_o, and the nasal infix, all of which were used to derive present and imperfect verbs from non-present tense verbs. Importantly, the Indo-European verb was not durchkonjugiert ("through-conjugated"); several aspect switchers were available to be added to the root, but while certain roots show a preference for the same markers in multiple daughter languages, it nonetheless appears that particular markers were not exclusively assigned to any root.

For example, the basic word for "stand", *steh₂-, was a root aorist; therefore, the word in its default aspect had the sense of "come to a standing position; to rise from a sitting position". In order to speak about "standing" in a present, durative sense ("be in a standing position"), the root aorist required a derivational marker to put it into the imperfective aspect. Most often, this aspect switcher was reduplication (cf. Greek ἵστημι, Sankskrit tíṣṭhati), although Germanic suggests a nasal infix or suffix was also used for this root (Gothic present ik standa vs. preterite ik stoþ), at least by a later period.

In the indicative mood an imperfective verb was conjugated in two tenses: present and past. If the perfect developed before the end of the common PIE period, it was near the end. Verbs had at least four moods: indicative, imperative, subjunctive and optative, as well as possibly the injunctive, reconstructible from Vedic Sanskrit and Homeric; two voices: active and mediopassive; three persons: first, second, and third; and three numbers: singular, dual, and plural. Verbs were also marked by a highly developed system of participles, one for each combination of tense and mood, and an assorted array of verbal nouns and adjectival formations.