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Abstract
The aim of the present article is to trace the origin and the evolution of the Tocharian A ending -äṃ, which is the plural marker of a closed class of nouns, whose Tocharian B counterparts are ranged under other inflectional classes. The results of this investigation are twofold: (1) not only is Tocharian A shown to have generally preserved the Proto-Indo-European situation better than Tocharian B, (2) but it is also argued that some members of this closed class are relevant from an Indo-European comparative perspective, since they have refunctionalised the n-form of the PIE *r/n-stems as a plural marker.
Abstract
The Khotanese masculine substantive saña- ‘artifice, expedient, means, method’ cannot be a loanword from the Gāndhārī feminine saṃña ‘perception, idea’ (< Sanskrit saṃjñā-), as has been recently suggested. Bilingual evidence for its meaning, its metrical use, and the contexts where it occurs show unambiguously that it differs formally and semantically from the Khotanese feminine saṃñā- ‘idea, notion, perception, etc.’, the actual loanword from Gāndhārī saṃña. Since the meaning of Tocharian B sāñ, ṣāñ and A ṣāñ ‘expedient, means’ agrees with that of Khotanese saña- ‘artifice etc.’, the old view should not be abandoned that the latter is a genuine Khotanese word < Iranian *sćandi̯a- (to the root *sćand- ‘to appear, seem (good)’) and is the source of the corresponding loanwords in Tocharian.