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Old Persian mav‑ and the Evolution of the Inchoative Suffix in Iranian

In: Indo-Iranian Journal
Author:
Marco Fattori “Sapienza” University of Rome Rome Italy

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https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5093-9495
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Abstract

In this article the so far unexplained Old Persian verbal form amūθa ‘he fled’ is interpreted as an imperfect built on an inchoative present stem from the Iranian root *mauH‑ ‘to move’. Starting from the observation that, in Old Persian, an outcome ‑θa‑ instead of ‑sa‑ for the Indo-Iranian suffix *-sća‑ is phonologically irregular in this position, a morphological explanation is proposed. It is argued that the stem θa‑ is a recent formation, not inherited from the Proto-Iranian stage. This finding is framed within a broader discussion on the historical development of the inchoative suffix in the Iranian languages, distinguishing between old inchoatives, i.e. formations inherited from a pre-historical stage (Indo-Iranian, sometimes even Proto-Indo-European) and recent inchoatives, i.e. new formations productively built in historical times.

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