H₂e-conjugation theory


The -conjugation theory adds a third conjugation to the two generally accepted conjugations of the Proto-Indo-European language, the thematic and athematic conjugations.
The symbol refers to a particular example of a class of sounds known as "laryngeals" in the theory of PIE linguistics.

History of the theory

Proposed by Jay Jasanoff in 1979 and presented in its most elaborate form in Jasanoff, the evidence for the "new" verbal conjugation in PIE is based on the attested existence of the similar ḫi-conjugation in Hittite and other Anatolian languages. Whereas the Anatolian ḫi-conjugation has traditionally been seen as an innovation in the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European family of languages, Jasanoff presents evidence and arguments to place it as a conjugation already established in PIE proper.

The problem

The following table serves to give an understanding of the problem that the theory tries to solve.
The origin of the Hittite mi-conjugation is not controversial. It can easily be identified as a descendant of the corresponding forms in the ancestral PIE language.
The question is, where does the ḫi-conjugation come from ? A very common solution has been to derive it from the PIE perfect. The second most common candidate has been the PIE middle.. Deriving the Hittite ḫi-conjugation directly from the PIE thematic presents involves huge problems, but that there is some connection seems very probable.
All these three solutions, according to Jasanoff, present massive problems, not the least of which being that the way verbs are distributed between the two Hittite conjugations seems arbitrary, by and large, compared to the other PIE daughter languages. Even for this reason, it seems more probable that two categories serving one function have largely merged in the other languages.
Thus, the theory does not dispute that the present of the PIE 3rd conjugation is related to the traditional middle and perfect endings, it just moves the common ancestry back to a time before that of PIE proper.

Some new developments

In his thesis on Hittite, Alwin Kloekhorst has shown that the ḫi-conjugation of that language is virtually the same as the reconstructed perfect of Proto-Indo-European, but without any reduplication. In a more recent study, Olivier Simon demonstrates that in the oldest stage of Proto-Indo-European, the active stative was unreduplicated while the medio-passive was reduplicated, and therefore unifies the Hittite ḫi-conjugation with the Proto-Indo-European mainstream model.