Language and Linguist Compass - 2011 - Dahl - Tense and Aspect in Indo Iranian Part 1 The Present and Aorist

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Language and Linguistics Compass 5/5 (2011): 265–281, 10.1111/j.1749-818x.2011.00273.x
Tense and Aspect in Indo-Iranian Part 1: The Present and

Aorist
Eystein Dahl*
University of Bergen
Abstract
The oldest attested Indo-Iranian languages, Vedic Sanskrit, Avestan and Old Persian, indicate that
Proto-Indo-Iranian possessed a rich inflectional verbal system with a great variety of temporal and
aspectual categories. This paper discusses the semantic properties of some of the inflectional forms
belonging to two of the most central inflectional stems in the Indo-Iranian languages, the Present
and Aorist which were associated with the neutral aspect and the perfective aspect, respectively.
A comparison with other Indo-European languages, most notably Ancient Greek clearly shows
that this morphosyntactic opposition was inherited from Proto-Indo-European.
Introduction
This is the first of two papers on the Indo-Iranian tense ⁄ aspect system in an Indo-Euro-
pean context. Given the complexity of this topic, it was found convenient to arrange the
material in two interrelated articles. This part deals with the temporal and aspectual
semantics of the two most central inflectional stems, the Present and Aorist. The second
part discusses the semantic properties of the Perfect, the futurate categories (the Future,
Voluntative and Desiderative) as well as participles and periphrastic constructions.
In this context, ‘Vedic’ means the language of the Rigveda, the oldest attested
Indo-Aryan collection of texts, ‘Avestan’ means the language of the Avesta, the oldest
attested Iranian collection of texts and ‘Old Persian’ means the language of the inscrip-
tions of the Achaemenids.1 Homeric Greek is the language of the Homeric Epics.
Indo-Iranian or Proto-Indo-Iranian is understood as a hypothetical language recon-
structed on the basis of Vedic, Avestan and Old Persian, whereas Proto-Indo-European
refers to the hypothetical ancestral proto-language common to Indo-Iranian, Homeric
Greek and other related language families such as Italic, Germanic, Baltic, Slavonic,
Celtic, etc.
The Vedic, Avestan and Old Persian sources pose serious challenges to any study of
historical–comparative semantics, especially because the available texts rarely provide
much contextual information. This raises the question how one can delimit the semantic
properties of grammatical categories in dead and reconstructed languages on the basis of
textual evidence which in many cases is not sufficiently clear or remains controversial.
However, most of the distribution patterns discussed presently represent fairly well-
established tendencies in at least one of the Old Indo-Iranian languages and are in line
with the comparative evidence provided by the others. I therefore hope to show that the
data from Old Indo-Aryan and Old Iranian presented in this paper suffice to outline the
most important features of the Indo-Iranian tense ⁄ aspect system.
ª 2011 The Author

Language and Linguistics Compass ª 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
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266 Eystein Dahl
Tense and Aspect in a Comparative–Historical Perspective

Tense and aspect represent two complementary dimensions in the structuring of temporal
information in sentences. The difference in meaning between a Simple Present form like
eats and a Simple Past form like ate concerns tense, whereas that between a Simple Past
form like ate and a Past Progressive form like was eating concerns aspect. Tense markers
specify the relationship between speech time, i.e. the time of the utterance, and reference
time, i.e. the time spoken about. Aspect markers specify the relationship between refer-
ence time and event time, i.e. the run time of the event or state denoted by the verb. This
account of tense and aspect semantics presupposes that three temporal parameters are rele-
vant for temporal and aspectual interpretation, a framework first formulated by the logi-
cian Hans Reichenbach (1947) which represents the standard analysis of tense and aspect
semantics in contemporary linguistics.
One may distinguish at least two types of tense categories, present and past, and three
types of aspect categories, perfective, imperfective and neutral. Assuming that tense and
aspect markers refer to temporal intervals, the perfective aspect represents a situation as
completed within the reference time interval, the imperfective aspect represents the situa-
tion as properly including the reference time interval and the neutral aspect represents a
situation as overlapping with the reference time interval (cf. Dahl 2010:57–8, 82–7). The
postulation of a third, ‘neutral’ aspectual category is motivated by typological as well as
theoretical considerations (cf. e.g. Dahl 2010; Smith 1997). There is a growing consensus
that aspect systems tend to be organized as privative oppositions where a semantically
specific or ‘marked’ category contrasts with a semantically underspecified or ‘unmarked’
category. The perfective and imperfective aspect may be taken as semantically specific
categories, whereas the neutral aspect may be regarded as an underspecified category
which is compatible with both imperfective and perfective readings (cf. Dahl 2010 with
references). Present tense is taken to express that the reference time interval overlaps with
speech time, whereas past tense expresses that the reference time is prior to speech time.
Another temporal relation which is relevant in the following discussion is ‘extended now’
which is understood as a subtype of present tense denoting a temporal interval extending
from some point in the past and including speech time as its final subinterval. Each of
these tense and aspect categories are assumed to be associated with a unique set of lexi-
cally and contextually determined readings, as schematically illustrated below (after Dahl
2010:68):
Figure 1 illustrates the idea that a given tense ⁄ aspect marker has a basic meaning (M)
which combines with different types of verbal lexemes yielding slightly different derived
meanings (m1, m2) which in turn are modified in different ways by contextual factors
(m1¢, m1¢¢, m2¢, m2¢¢, etc.). The readings associated with a given morphosyntactic category
in a given language directly reflect its semantics. Two typologically distinct categories
m1 m2
m1’ m1” m1n m2’ m2” m2n
Fig 1. Lexically and contextually determined readings as networks of structured polysemy.
ª 2011 The Author Language and Linguistics Compass 5/5 (2011): 265–281, 10.1111/j.1749-818x.2011.00273.x
Tense and Aspect in Indo-Iranian Part 1 267
may have several readings in common but must differ with regard to at least one reading
which, accordingly, is typologically relevant in the sense that it may be used to distin-
guish between two typologically different categories. If two or more categories within
the same synchronic system have a given reading in common, this may result in a com-
petition between the two categories and if one of the categories is semantically more spe-
cific than the other, it will tend to be selected and to block the less specific category
from the relevant contexts. A model along these lines can be fruitfully applied to compar-
ative–historical data, where a given lexically or contextually determined reading may be
ascribed to a reconstructed category if and only if it is attested with at least two etymo-
logically related categories in at least two genetically related languages (cf. Dahl 2009).
Philological Preliminaries
The Indo-Iranian verb had five modal categories, the Indicative, the Subjunctive, the
Optative, the Imperative and the so-called Injunctive. The Indicative and Injunctive are
modally neutral or ‘unmarked’, representing the main markers of modally unqualified
statements; the Subjunctive expressed epistemic probability, the Optative epistemic possi-
bility and the Imperative is the main marker of directive modality (cf. e.g. Dahl
2010:216–52; Skjærvø 2009:134–8; Tichy 2006 passim). The Subjunctive, Optative and
Imperative are omitted from the following discussion.
In the traditional descriptions of Vedic, Avestan and Old Persian verbal lexemes are
listed as roots (cf. e.g. Bartholomae 1904; Cheung 2007; Grassmann 1996; Macdonell
1924; Mayrhofer 1992, 1996; Kent 1953; Whitney 1885, 1889). The Indo-Iranian lan-
guages had several inflectional and derivational stems, which either consist of the root
alone or are derived from the root by reduplication and ⁄ or suffixation which in turn
form the basis for the various finite and infinite forms (cf. e.g. Macdonell 1910, 1916;
Reichelt 1909; Whitney 1889). The Indo-Iranian verbal system corresponds closely to
the Homeric Greek verbal system and the comparative data from these two language
families give a fairly precise idea about the Proto-Indo-European state of affairs.
The so-called primary and secondary endings are two sets of portmanteau suffixes
expressing person and number which are added to the stems and contribute to temporal
interpretation. The primary endings were associated with present or future time reference
and are given in Table 1.2
The endings included in this and the following tables should be read as reconstructed,
the asterisk conventionally preceding reconstructed forms being omitted for ease of
Table 1. The Indo-Iranian primary endings.
268 Eystein Dahl
readability. The endings followed by a parenthesized question mark are transposed onto
Indo-Iranian on the basis of Vedic evidence only.
The variants -mi ⁄ -ami ⁄ -a, -ath ai;=-ith ai; and -atai;=-itai; are not randomly interchange-
able, their distribution being determined by the morphological properties of the underly-
ing stem: the endings -ami=-a; -ith ai; and -itai; are restricted to so-called thematic stems,
i.e. stems containing the stem-final vowel -a-, cf. e.g. bhára-ami ‘carry, am carrying’ (cf.
Ved. bhárami, Av. barami, OP baramiy). The ending -a is restricted to thematic stems and
is somewhat less frequent than the variant -ami. The endings -mi, -ath ai; and -at h ai; are
restricted to so-called athematic stems, i.e. stems not containing that vowel, cf. e.g. ás-mi
‘am’ (cf. Ved. ásmi, Av. ahmı, OP ahmiy). There is no systematic distributional difference
between the variants -u;as ⁄ -u;asi, -mas ⁄ -masi and -tha ⁄ -thana.
The secondary endings are underspecified with regard to tense, being compatible with
present, past or future time reference. They are given in Table 2.3
The secondary endings are the only endings which co-occur with the so-called aug-
ment á-, a prefix representing the main marker of past time reference in Indo-Iranian, cf.
e.g. the 3sg Imperfect form á-bhau;a-t ‘became, was’ (cf. Ved. ábhavat, Av. abauuat, OP
abava). ~
In recent years, a number of scholars have examined the tense ⁄ aspect categories in the
ancient Indo-Iranian languages from different perspectives and with different results (cf.
e.g. Dahl 2010; Haig 2008; Kiparsky 1998; Kümmel 2000; Mumm 2002; Skjærvø
2009:126–45; Tichy 1997). An important controversy concerns the semantic properties of
the Vedic Present ⁄ Imperfect and Aorist. Tichy (1997) has made a strong case for the
claim that the Vedic Aorist Indicative denotes the immediate ⁄ recent past and that the
Vedic Imperfect denotes the remote past and that there is no clear aspectual difference
between these two categories. Under this assumption, the Vedic and Indo-Iranian past
tense system would represent a temporal remoteness system of the type found in certain
Bantu languages (cf. e.g. Comrie 1985; Dahl 1984). In contrast, Dahl (2010) derives the
remoteness readings associated with the Vedic Aorist Indicative and Imperfect from their
different aspectual specifications, claiming that the Aorist has a markedly perfective mean-
ing and that the Imperfect has a general neutral meaning, concluding that aspect rather
than temporal distance constitutes the central semantic dimension in the Vedic past tense
system. Skjærvø (2009:126–45) gives an account of the semantics of the Avestan and Old
Persian verbal categories which largely conforms to the analysis of the Vedic data
presented in Dahl (2010). The following discussion covers the most important findings of
these works as well as the most interesting points of controversy. It also highlights the
many parallels between Indo-Iranian and Homeric Greek.
Table 2. The Indo-Iranian secondary endings.
The Present Stem

The Present stem represented the most central tense ⁄ aspect category in the Indo-Iranian
verbal system. The comparative evidence suggests that it had a neutral aspectual meaning
and that it was not subject to any restrictions as regards temporal reference, being com-
patible with present, past and future time reference alike.4 As virtually all types of verbs
are attested with a Present stem in the Indo-Iranian languages, the Present may be
regarded as the unmarked or default category in the tense ⁄ aspect system.5
The Present Indicative

The Indo-Iranian Present Indicative is formed by adding the primary endings to the Present
Stem, cf. e.g. Present 3sg bhára-ti from bhar- ‘carry, bring’ (cf. Ved. bhárati, Av. baraiti, OP
baratiy). It is the main expression of present time reference in the Indo-Iranian languages,
being typically used to express that a single, specific situation holds at speech time (hence-
forth ‘the present progressive–processual reading’) or to express that a situation of the type
named by the verb occurs regularly or habitually through a time interval including speech
time (henceforth ‘the present habitual reading’).
(1) a. Vedic :
śı́śıte nunam: paraśúm
- svayasám:
sharpen:PRS.3SG now axe:ACC.SG of.good.metal:ACC.SG
‘(Brilliant Brahman: aspatiÞ is now sharpening the axe of good metal’
(Rigveda X 53.9c after Dahl 2010:164)
b. Vedic
yám: devasas trı́r áhann ayájante
who:ACC.SG god:NOM.PL thrice day:LOC.SG honour:PRS.3PL
divé-dive várun: o mitró
day:LOC.SG.day:LOC.SG Varun: a:NOM.SG Mitra:NOM.SG
agnı́h: ⁄
Agni:NOM.SG
‘…whom the gods Varun: a, Mitra, Agni honor thrice a day, day by day’
(Rigveda III 4.2ab after Dahl 2010:166)
c. Avestan
aebiio yoi uruuataiš dr
ujo a:sahiia
those:DAT.PL who:NOM.PL deal:INS.PL lie:GEN.SG truth:GEN.SG
gaeha˚ vı.m r n: caite
ee
being:ACC.PL destroy:PRS.3PL
‘…to those who by (their) deals with the Lie are now destroying the living
beings of order’ (Y.31.1 after Skjærvø 2009:127)
d. Avestan
apa˛m napas ˚ e ta˚ apo …
Apa˛m.Napat:NOM.SG those:ACC.PL waters:ACC.PL
šoihro.baxta˚ vı.baxšaiti
distributed.by.settlements:ACC.PL distribute:PRS.3SG
Apa˛m Napat distributes those waters distributed by settlements’
(Yašt 8.34 after Skjærvø 2009:127)
270 Eystein Dahl
As the Homeric Greek Present Indicative was also associated with these two readings,
they appear to be inherited from Proto-Indo-European.
The Indo-Iranian Present Indicative was also used in performative sentences to denote
a single, specific situation that reaches its conclusion as the speaker utters the sentence.
(2) a. Vedic
prá tát te adyá śipivis: :ta na ma
forth this:ACC.SG you:GEN.SG : today Śipivis: :ta:VOC:SG name:ACC.SG
aryáh: śams
- ami vayúnani vidvan=
pious.man:GEN.SG extol:PRS.1SG sacred.rules:ACC.PL knowing:NOM.SG
‘O Śipivis: :ta, I extol this name of yours, of the lord, today, knowing the sacred
rules’ (Rigveda VII 100.5ab after Dahl 2010:169–70)
b. Avestan
ta 0ba p r sa ahura ee
these:ACC.PL you:ACC.SG ask:PRS.1SG Ahura:VOC.SG
ya zı aitı jn: ghati ca e
which:NOM.PL PTC approach:PRS.3SG come:VOL.3SG and
‘I ask Thee, O Ahura, about the things which are approaching and
will come’ (Yasna 31.14 cf. also Humbach et al. 1991:129)
Under this reading, the Present Indicative seemingly neither denotes a situation which is
progressive nor a situation which is habitual but rather a situation which is conceived of
as completed within or coextensive with the reference time interval.6 From a comparative
perspective, we may note that the Homeric Present Indicative was also associated with a
performative reading.
There is some evidence that the Indo-Iranian Present Indicative was compatible with
an ‘extended now’ present time reference, representing a state or process as having been
going on for a while and still holding at speech time.
(3) a. Vedic
sanat sá yudhmá ójasa panasyate ⁄ ⁄
old:ABL.SG he:NOM.SG warrior:NOM.SG strength:INS.SG impress:PRS.3SG
‘Since ancient times he has impressed (people) with his strenght’ (Rigveda I
55.2d after Dahl 2010:181)
b. Old Persian
haca paruviyatah amata ahmaha: y
from beginning:ABL.SG distinguished:NOM.PL be:PRS.1PL
‘From the beginning we have been distinguished’ (DB 1.7-8 after Skjærvø
2009:128)
Similar constructions are attested in Homeric Greek:

(4) epei de detha philon apo pemata paskho
because long.time friend:GEN.PL away woe:ACC.PL suffer:PRS.1SG
‘For a long time I have been suffering woes away from my friends’ (Odyssey 7152)
Moreover, Present Indicative forms are sometimes combined with adverbs like Vedic
pura , Old Avestan para, Young Avestan pauruua ‘formerly, before’, expressing that some-
thing used to happen in the past, often contrasting with the present.
(5) a. Vedic
kvà tyani nau sakhya babh uvuh:
where those:NOM.PL we:GEN.DU friendship:NOM.PL become:PRF.3PL
sácavahe yád avr: kám: pura cit ⁄
associate:PRS.2DU when without.enmity formerly even
‘What has become of those friendly relations of ours, we two who formerly
associated without enmity’ (Rigveda VII 88.5ab)
b. Avestan
yoi pauruua mihr m družin: ti
e
who:NOM.PL formerly Mihra:ACC.SG betray:PRS.3PL
‘who betrayed Mihra before’ (Yašt 10.45 after Skjærvø 2009:127)
This reading may be regarded as a contextually determined variant of the extended now
reading. The Homeric Greek construction ‘paros ‘‘before, formerly’’ + Present Indicative’
expresses the same meaning, suggesting that this construction originates from Proto-Indo-
European (cf. also Delbrück 1897:265–8).
Finally, it should be noted that the Vedic Present Indicative is occasionally used to denote
a situation located in the semantic past (cf. e.g. Delbrück 1876:89–90; Deo 2006:151–8).
(6) Vedic
r
úttara su ádharah: putrá asıd
above mother:NOM.SG below son:NOM.SG be:IPF.3SG
danuh: śaye sahávatsa ná dhenúh: ==
Danu:NOM.SG lie:PRS.3SG with.calf:NOM.SG like cow:NOM.SG
‘The mother above, the son was below; Danu (Vr: tra’s mother) lay (lit. lies), like a
cow with her calf’ (Rigveda I 32.9cd after Deo 2006:153)
Deo (2006:152–5) assumes that the historical reading of the Vedic Present Indicative indi-
cates that it only has an aspectual specification and is underspecified with regard to tense.
Thus the general restriction of the Present Indicative to contexts with present time refer-
ence might be an instance of morphosyntactic blocking, i.e. that more specific past tense
categories like the Imperfect or Aorist are preferred to the Present Indicative in past tense
contexts. The historical reading of the Present Indicative is neither attested in Old Iranian
nor in Homeric Greek and it is therefore likely that it represents a Vedic innovation.
The Imperfect
The Indo-Iranian Imperfect is formed by adding the augment and secondary endings to
the Present Stem, cf. e.g. Imperfect 3sg a-bh au;a-t from bhau;- ‘become, be’ (cf. Ved.
ábhavat, Av. abauuat, OP abava). It was typically used to denote a situation located in the
~ mythical past.
remote, historical or
(7) a. Vedic
deva nam: yugé prathamé
Gods:GEN.SG generation:LOC.SG first:LOC.SG
’satah: sád ajayata ⁄
not.being:ABL.SG being:NOM.SG be.born:IPF.3SG
‘In the (time of the) first generation of gods, being was born from not-being’
(Rigveda X 72.3ab after Dahl 2010:187)
272 Eystein Dahl
b. Old Persian
iyam gaumata haya maguš
this:NOM.SG Gaumata:NOM.SG the:NOM.SG Magian:NOM.SG
adurujiya avaha ahanha
lie:IPF.3SG thus say:IPF.3SG
‘this (picture represents) Gaumata the Magian; he lied (and) said thus’ (DBb
after Skjærvø 2009:129)
The aspectual reference of the Imperfect remains controversial. Some scholars claim that
the Vedic Imperfect had different aspectual properties than the Present Indicative (cf. e.g.
Hoffmann 1967:152–3; Tichy 1997). Whereas the Present Indicative tends to be regarded
as an imperfective category, the Imperfect is generally taken to have a less obviously
imperfective character, as illustrated, for instance, by the Vedic example just cited where
the Imperfect form ajayata ‘was born’ denotes a single, specific situation terminated in the
past and thus seems to have a perfective rather than an imperfective meaning. Other
scholars observe that the Imperfect at least in some cases has imperfective readings, being
occasionally used with a progressive–processual or a habitual meaning (cf. e.g. Dahl
2010:186–216; Gonda 1962):
(8) a. yáj jayathas tád áhar asya
what:ACC.SG be.born:PRS.INJ.2SG that:ACC.SG day:ACC.SG it:GEN.SG
kame
love:LOC.SG
:
’mśóh
- : piyu
:sam apibo giris: :tha m ⁄
filament:GEN.SG juice:ACC.SG drink:IPF.2SG mountain.born:ACC.SG
tám: te mata pári yós: a
this:ACC.SG you:DAT.SG mother:NOM.SG round maiden:NOM.SG
jánitrı
parent:NOM.SG
maháh: pitúr dáma asi~
ncad
great:GEN.SG father:GEN.SG home:LOC.SG pour.out:IPF.3SG
ágre ⁄ ⁄
beginning:LOC.SG
‘On the day when you were born you voluptuously drank nectar of the plant
which comes from the mountains. Your mother, the young maiden, was
pouring it abundantly out for you in the house of your great father for the first
time’ (Rigveda III 48.2 after Dahl 2010:203–4)
b. yád vı́r upa acaram: martyes: v
when : with.changed.appearance:NOM.SG move:IPF1SG mortals:LOC.PL
avasam - ra trıh: śarádaś cátasrah: ⁄
dwell:IPF.1SG nights:ACC.SG : autumns:ACC.SG four:ACC.SG
ghr: tasya stokam - sak:r d áhna asnam:
ghee:GEN.SG drop:ACC.SG once day:GEN.SG consume:IPF.1SG
ta d evá idam: tatr: pan: a carami ⁄ ⁄
that:ABL.SG so this:ACC.SG satisfy:PRF.PRT.NOM move:PRS.1SG
‘When I roamed among mortals I spent the nights (with you) for four years.
Once a day I ate a drop of ghee. Satisfied with this I (still) roam about just like
that’ (Rigveda X 95.16 after Dahl 2010:213–4)
Examples like these, albeit rare, indicate that the Vedic Imperfect had essentially the same
range of imperfective readings as the Present Indicative. It is therefore tempting to
directly compare the ‘perfective’ simple past reading of the Imperfect with the performa-
tive reading of the Present Indicative, regarding these two readings as a past and a present
variant of the same aspectual relation. In that case, the Imperfect and Present Indicative
would have essentially the same aspectual properties, both denoting the neutral aspect.
Augmented forms of the Present stem are extremely rare in Avestan and the few
attested examples are insufficient to give a precise idea about their use. However, the
following examples suggest that the Avestan Imperfect was compatible with a simple past
reading, a progressive–processual reading and a habitual reading (cf. also Skjærvø
2009:128–9).
(9) a. aat az me tan
um aguze
~
then I:NOM.SG body:ACC.SG hide:IPF.3SG
adairi pad m e gus e aršno bar maiiaonahe e
under foot:ACC.SG cow:GEN.SG manly:GEN.SG ruttish(?):GEN.SG
‘Then I hid my body under the foot of a ruttish(?) bull’ (Yašt 17.55)
b. at va ustanaiš ahuua zastaiš
~ we:NOM.DU out.stretch:PPP.INS.PL be:IPF.1DU hands:INS.PL
then
frin mna
e ahurai. a
friends:NOM.DU Ahura:DAT.SG to
m e uruua guš ca aziia˚
e
my:NOM.SG soul:NOM.SG cow:GEN.SG and fertile:GEN.SG
hiiat mazda˛m duuaidı ˚ o
f rasabii e
when ~ Mazda:ACC.SG place:AOR.INJ.1DU questions:INS.PL
‘Having stretched out our hands we two were friends to the Ahura, when
we submitted Mazda to our questions’ (Yasna 29.5)
c. kada aj n e u0r m
m ahiia e madahiia
when smite:IPF.3SG urine:NOM.SG he:GEN.SG intoxication:GEN.SG
‘When did the urine of his intoxication (use to) smash (anything)’ (Yasna
48.10 after Skjærvø 2009:128)
Although these examples are not strictly compelling, nothing speaks against the interpreta-
tion given here but the hypothesis that the Indo-Iranian Imperfect was aspectually neutral
is primarily based on Old Indo-Aryan evidence with somewhat scanty support from Old
Iranian. As the Homeric Imperfect has the same range of readings, it is likely that the
Proto-Indo-European Imperfect denoted the neutral aspect (cf. Dahl 2009 for discussion).
The Present Injunctive

The Present Injunctive is formed by adding secondary endings to the Present stem, cf.
e.g. Present Injunctive stau-t from stau- ‘celebrate, praise’ (cf. Ved. staut, Av. staot).
Although the position of the Present Injunctive within the Indo-Iranian tense ⁄ mood ~
system remains controversial, there is a consensus that the Vedic Injunctive is not
inherently associated with any temporal or modal meaning (cf. e.g. Hoffmann 1967;
Kiparsky 1968, 2005). The Vedic and Avestan Injunctive show at least two distinct read-
ings. First, it could be used with a general present time reference:
274 Eystein Dahl
(10) a. Vedic :
ágne naks: atram ajáram a su
ryam
-
Agni:VOC.SG star:ACC.SG undecaying:ACC.SG to sun:ACC.SG
rohayo divı́ ⁄
let.ascend:PRS.INJ.2SG heaven:LOC.SG
dádhaj jyótir jánebhyah: ⁄ ⁄
placing:NOM.SG light:ACC.SG men:DAT.PL
‘O Agni, you (always) let the undecaying star, the sun mount the vault of
heaven, providing light for mankind’ (Rigveda X 156.4)
b. Avestan
mazda˚ dadat ahuro hauruuato
~
Mazda:NOM.SG give:PRS.INJ.3SG Ahura:NOM.SG wholeness:GEN.SG
am r tatas ca ⁄
ee b
uroiš a …
immortality:GEN.SG and plenty:GEN.SG to
‘Ahura Mazda (always) gives out of (his) plenty of wholeness and immortality’
(Yasna 31.21 after Skjærvø 2009:128)
This reading may be compared with the habitual reading of the Present Indicative and
Imperfect.
Second, the Present Injunctive could be used to denote a single, specific situation in
the past:
(11) a. Vedic
ayam: tridhatu divı́ rocane:su
this:NOM.SG treefold heaven:LOC.SG light:LOC.PL
trite:su vindad am:r tam: u:lham ⁄ ⁄
nı́g
Tritas:LOC.PL find:PRS.INJ.3SG ambrosia:ACC.SG hidden:ACC.SG
‘He found the threefold hidden ambrosia among the lights in heaven, among
the Tritas’ (Rigveda VI 44.23cd after Dahl 2010:243)
b. Avestan
aat mraot ahuro mazda˚
~
then ~
say:PRS.INJ.3SG. Ahura:NOM.SG Mazda:NOM.SG
‘Then Ahura Mazda said’ (after Skjærvø 2009:129)
The Present Injunctive is the default narrative past tense in Avestan (cf. Hoffmann and
Forssmann 1996:181; Skjærvø 2009:128–9). As there are extremely few augmented forms
in Avestan, it remains unclear whether this prefix represented an obligatory morphologi-
cal marker of past tense in Indo-Iranian. The situation is analogous in Homeric Greek
and the use of the augment to express past tense may have been optional in Proto-Indo-
European, possibly indicating that tense was not fully established as a grammatically rele-
vant semantic dimension in the Proto-Indo-European verbal system (cf. Kiparsky 1968,
2005).
In Vedic as well as Avestan, Present Injunctive forms sometimes denote a situation
which temporally overlaps with another situation, apparently being compatible with a
progressive–processual interpretation.
(12) a. Vedic
vádhıd ı́ndro varáśikhasya se:so
smite:AOR.INJ.3SG Indra:NOM.SG Varaśikha:GEN.SG offspring:ACC.SG
’bhyavartı́ne cayamanaya siks: an ⁄
Abhyavartin:DAT.SG Cayamana:DAT.SG :aiding:NOM.SG
vr: cıvato yád dhariyupıyayam
-
Vr: civants:ACC.PL when Hariy upıya:LOC.SG
hán paurve árdhe bhiyása áparo
destroy:PRS.INJ.3SG first:LOC.SG part:LOC.SG fear:INS.SG other:NOM.SG
dárt ⁄ ⁄
burst:AOR.INJ.3SG
‘Indra killed Varaśikha’s offspring while aiding Abhyavartin Cayamana when he
was destroying the Vr. civants in the first array at Hariy upıya, the remaining
(array) dispersed in fear’ (Rigveda VI 27.5)
b. Avestan
yat titarat a¢ro mainiiuš
when~ ~
defeat:PRS.INJ.3SG evil.NOM.SG spirit:NOM.SG
kahım ašahe va¢huš e
foundation(?):ACC.SG order:GEN.SG good:GEN.SG
antar e pairi.avait m e vohu ca mano
between come.down:IPF.3DU good:NOM.SG and thought:NOM.SG
atarš ca
fire:NOM.SG and
ta˚ he tauruuaiiat m tbae ša˚ e
they:NOM.DU he:GEN.SG defeat:PRS.INJ.3DU ~hostilities:ACC.PL
a¢rahe mainiius druuato
e
evil:GEN.SG spirit:GEN.SG possessed.by.falsehood:GEN.SG
‘When the Evil Spirit was about to defeat the foundation of Good Order, Good
Mind and Fire came down in between. They defeated his hostilities, (those) of
the Evil Spirit possessed by falsehood’ (Yašt 17.77-78)
These data suggest that the Indo-Iranian Present Injunctive was compatible with the same
range of aspectual readings as the Present Indicative and Imperfect. As regards temporal
reference, the Present Injunctive is more flexible than these two categories, being
compatible with present as well as past time reference.
At this point, an interim summary of the semantics of the Indo-Iranian Present is in
order. The Present is compatible with present, past and future time reference and denotes
the neutral aspect, something which is reflected in the fact that the Present Indicative,
the Imperfect and the Present Injunctive show a progressive–processual reading, a habitual
reading and a simple present ⁄ simple past reading in Vedic as well as Avestan and ⁄ or Old
Persian. However, the Present Indicative strongly tends to assume either a progressive or
a habitual meaning – as may be expected for a category with primarily present time refer-
ence – whereas the Imperfect primarily refers to a single, specific situation completed in
the past, although it is occasionally used with a progressive or a habitual meaning. The
Present Injunctive shows all three types of readings.
276 Eystein Dahl
The Aorist Stem

The Indo-Iranian Aorist stem denoted the perfective aspect. This is, among other things,
reflected by the fact that the Aorist is compatible with past and future but not with
strictly present time reference.7 Moreover, Aorist Indicative and Injunctive forms of atelic
verbs are relatively rare and characteristically show an ‘inchoative-ingressive’ reading,
focusing the entry into the state or process denoted by the verb:
(13) a. Vedic
anyó anyám ánu gr. bhn.aty enor
another:NOM.SG another:ACC.SG after take:PRS.3SG the.two:GEN.DU
apa m: prasargé yád amandis:atam ⁄
water:GEN.PL outburst:LOC.SG when be.delighted:AOR.3DU
‘One of the two grasps the other from behind, when they have become
exhilarated in the discharge of the waters’ (Rigveda VII 103.4ab after Jamison
1993:140)
b. Avestan
at~ca gus e uruua raosta
~ and cow:GEN.SG soul:NOM.SG moan:AOR.INJ.3SG
then
‘and then the soul of the cow began to moan’ (Yasna 29.9)
As the perfective Homeric Greek Aorist also has a salient inchoative-ingressive reading,
this reading as well as the basic perfective meaning of the Indo-Iranian Aorist may be
regarded as inherited from Proto-Indo-European.
The Aorist Indicative

The Indo-Iranian Aorist Indicative was formed by adding the augment and secondary
endings to the Aorist stem, cf. e.g. Aorist 3sg á-dha-t from dha- ‘put, place’ (cf. Vedic
ádhat, OP ada). It is characteristically used in contexts referring to the immediate ⁄ recent
past.
(14) a. Vedic
asmabhir
u nú praticaks: iya abhud
we:INS.PL and now visible:NOM.SG become:AOR.3SG
‘And now she has come into existence to be seen in turn by us’ (Rigveda I
113.11 after Klein 1978:134)
b. Avestan
n
u zit cašmainı vii.a.dar s m ee
now for ~ eye:LOC.SG catch.sight:AOR.1SG
‘For I just now caught sight of it in (my) eye’ (Yasna 45.8 after Skjærvø 2009:
130)
The fact that the Aorist Indicative is the preferred expression of immediate ⁄ recent past
in the Indo-Iranian languages has been interpreted as an indication that it was inher-
ently associated with a recent past meaning (cf. Tichy 1997). However, this claim faces
the objection that the Aorist Indicative is also found in contexts referring to the
remote past.
(15) a. Vedic
vásis: :thasya stuvatá ı́ndro aśrod
Vasis: :tha:GEN.SG praising:GEN.SG Indra:NOM.SG listen:AOR.3SG
‘Indra listened to Vasis: :tha who was praising him’ (Rigveda VII 33.5c after Dahl
2010:292)
b. Old Persian
baga vaza: rka auramazda
god:NOM.SG great:NOM.SG Ahura.Mazda:NOM.SG
haya imam b
umim ada
who:NOM.SG this:ACC.SG earth:ACC.SG place:AOR.3SG
‘Ahuramazda is a great god, (he) who set in place this earth’ (DE 1-11 after
Skjærvø 2009:132)
In contrast, scholars like Kiparsky (1998) and Dahl (2010) take the preference for the
Aorist Indicative in immediate ⁄ recent contexts to reflect the fact that the perfective Aorist
represents a more optimal expression of this temporal relation than the neutral Imperfect.
In Vedic, the Aorist Indicative represents the main expression of relative past, a reading
which does not seem to be attested with the Iranian Aorist Indicative.8
:
(16) śúnaś cic chépam: nı́ditam
- sahásrad
even Śunahśepa:ACC.SG bound:ACC.SG thousand:ABL.SG
yu pad amuñco asami:s:ta hı́ :sáh: ⁄
sacrificial.pole:ABL.SG release:IPF.2SG be.prepared:AOR.3SG for he:NOM.SG
‘You even released Śuna»śepa who was bound for a thousand from the sacrificial
pole, for he was prepared (for sacrifice)’ (Rigveda V 2.7ab after Dahl 2010:277)
As this use of the Aorist Indicative is limited to Indo-Aryan one might well assume that
it represents a secondary development peculiar to this branch. However, the Homeric
Greek Aorist Indicative also has a relative past reading and therefore this reading may be
ascribed to the Proto-Indo-European Aorist Indicative, presumably being preserved in
Vedic and being lost or simply unattested in Old Iranian, where Aorist Indicative forms
are extremely rare.
(17) ho gar basileı̈ kholotheis
He:NOM.SG for king:DAT.SG having.become.angry:NOM.SG
nouson ana straton orse kaken, olekonto
plague:ACC.SG through army:ACC.SG rouse:AOR 3SG evil:ACC.SG die:IPF3PL
de laoi,
and people:NOM.PL
houneka ton Khrusen etimasen
because the:ACC.SG Chryses:ACC.SG dishonour:AOR.3SG
priest:ACC.SG Son.of.Atreus:NOM.SG
aretrera Atreı̈des (…)
‘For as he was angry at the King he roused an evil plague throughout the army,
and people were dying successively, because the son of Atreus had dishonored
Chryses, the priest’ (Ilias 1.9-12)
278 Eystein Dahl
The Aorist Injunctive

The Indo-Iranian Aorist Injunctive is formed by adding secondary endings to the Aorist
stem, cf. e.g. Aorist Injunctive 3sg middle mams-ta from man- ‘think’ (cf. Ved. mamsta,_
Av. ma˛sta). The Indo-Iranian Aorist Injunctive had at least three readings. First, it could
denote a situation in the remote past:
(18) a. Vedic:
vádhıd vr: trám: vajren. a mandasanah:
strike:AOR.INJ.3.SG Vr: tra:ACC.SG mace:INS.SG drunk:NOM.SG
sárann apo jávasa
run.off:AOR.INJ.3PL waters:NOM.PL quickness:INS.SG
hatavr: :sn:ıh: ⁄ ⁄
having.a.slain.lord:NOM.SG
‘Drunk, he struck Vr: tra with the mace. The waters ran off quickly as their lord
had been slain’ (Rigveda IV 17.3cd after Dahl 2010:325)
b. Avestan:
kas na xvn: g strm
e ca dat e
~
who:NOM.SG PTC sun:GEN.SG stars:GEN.PL and place:AOR.INJ.3SG
aduuab m e
road:ACC.SG
‘who, I wonder, (first) established the road of the sun and of the stars’ (Yasna
44.3 after Skjærvø 2009:132)
Second, the Aorist Injunctive could have future time reference:

(19) a. Vedic
darsam: nú visvadarsatam:
see:AOR.INJ.1SG now visible.to.all:ACC.SG
‘I shall now see him who is visible to all’ (Rigveda I 25.18a)
b. Avestan
yas ta daeuun: g aparo … tar.ma˛st
e e
who:NOM.SG that:INS.SG gods:ACC.PL old:ACC.PL despise:AOR.INJ.3SG
‘(he) who, on account of that, in the future shall have despised the old gods’
(Yasna 45.11 after Skjærvø 2009:131)
Finally, the Indo-Iranian Aorist Injunctive was characteristically used in prohibitive clauses
to exhort the addressee to abstain from performing a situation having not yet begun at
speech time, a reading which is often labelled ‘preventive’ (cf. e.g. Hoffmann 1967:45–106).
(20) a. Vedic
púruravo ma mr: tha ma prá
Pur uravas:VOC.SG don’t die:AOR.INJ.2SG don’t forth
papto
fall:AOR.INJ.2SG
ma tva v:r kaso áśivasa u
don’t you:ACC.SG wolves:NOM.PL pernicious:NOM.PL and
ks: an ⁄
eat:AOR.INJ.3PL
‘Pur uravas, do not die! Do not commit suicide! And don’t let pernicious
wolves eat you!’ (Rigveda X 95.15ab after Dahl 2010:323)
b. Avestan
huxsa0ra xsn: tam e
~
good.ruler:NOM.PL assume.rule:AOR.IMP.3PL
ma n e dus xasa0ra exsn: ta e
don’t we:GEN.PL bad.ruler:NOM.PL assume.rule:AOR.INJ.3PL
‘Let good rulers assume rule, do not let bad rulers assume rule over us!’ (Yasna
48.5 after Humbach et al. 1991:177)
In contrast, the neutral Present Injunctive tends to have a prohibitive or ‘inhibitive’

meaning in prohibitive sentences, being used to exhort the addressee to discontinue a
situation running at speech time (cf. e.g. Hoffmann 1967:45–106).
(21) a. Vedic
aks: air ma dıvyah: kr.:sim ı́t
dices:INS.PL don’t play:PRS.INJ.2SG land:ACC.SG indeed
kr: :sasva
plough:PRS.IMP.2SG
vitté ramasva bahú mányamanah: ⁄
acquisition:LOC.SG be.pleased:PRS.IMP.2SG much think:PRS.PRT.NOM
‘Do not continue to play with dices! Plough the land instead! Be pleased with
your property, thinking it’s plenty!’ (Rigveda X 34.13ab after Dahl 2010:244–5)
b. Avestan
vıduua˚ vıduśe mraotu
knowing:NOM.SG knowing:DAT.SG speak:PRS.IMP.3SG
ma uuıduu å
e aipı dbauuaiiat e
~
don’t ignorant:NOM.SG longer delude:PRS.INJ.3SG
‘Let the knowing one speak to the knowing one. Let the ignorant one no
longer delude (people)’ (Yasna 31.17 after Humbach et al. 1991:130)
Apart from the distinction between prohibitive and inhibitive sentences which appears to
be motivated by aspectual factors, it is difficult to discern a systematic functional differ-
ence between the Aorist and Present Injunctive in the Indo-Iranian languages (cf. how-
ever, Dahl 2010; Hoffmann 1967).
To conclude, the Aorist is compatible with past and future but apparently not with pres-
ent time reference and denotes the perfective aspect. This is reflected by the fact that Aorist
forms of state and process verbs tend to have an inchoative-ingressive meaning, that Aorist
Indicative forms are preferred to the Imperfect in contexts referring to the immediate past
and that Aorist Injunctive forms are either used to denote a single, specific situation located
in the past or in the future or, in prohibitive clauses, with a preventive meaning.
Conclusion
In this paper, I have briefly reviewed the temporal and aspectual properties of the Indo-
Iranian Present and Aorist. These two categories are associated with a semantic opposition
between the neutral and the perfective aspect. A comparison with Homeric Greek sug-
gests that the morphosyntactic opposition between the neutral Present ⁄ Imperfect and the
perfective Aorist was inherited from Proto-Indo-European.9 In the next part, I will turn
to a discussion of the semantics of the Indo-Iranian Perfect, the Future, the Desiderative
and Voluntative as well as the periphrastic and participial constructions.
280 Eystein Dahl
Short Biography
Eystein Dahl’s research interests primarily involve Vedic, Indo-Iranian and Indo-Euro-
pean historical semantics, syntax and morphology and he has written a number of articles
within these fields. His forthcoming book Time, Tense and Aspect in Early Vedic Grammar
explores to what extent formally oriented theoretical semantics and linguistic typology
enhances our understanding of tense and aspect semantics in the language of the Rigveda.
Current research partly involves argument structure constructions in Indo-Iranian and
Latin and partly modal semantics in Indo-Iranian, Latin, Greek and Hittite. He holds a
PhD in Linguistics from the University of Oslo and is currently employed as a Postdoc-
toral Research Fellow at the University of Bergen.
Acknowledgement
I am grateful to Ashwini Deo and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments and
suggestions which have significantly enhanced the final version of this paper. Of course,
any remaining errors or inconsistencies remain my own.
Notes
* Correspondence address: Eystein Dahl, University of Bergen, Postboks 7805, 5020 Bergen, Norway. E-mail:
eystein.dahl@lle.uib.no
1
Although one may distinguish different chronological stages both in the Rigveda and the Avesta, I have, at the
risk of a gross oversimplification of important philological facts, treated the language of each of these text collections
as a unitary linguistic stage in this context.
2
The Imperative mood has a third set of endings which partly comprise secondary endings and partly endings
which are peculiar to the Imperative. Note also that the 1sg active primary ending -ani which is peculiar to the
Subjunctive has been omitted from the table for ease of exposition.
3
Note that the 1sg middle secondary ending -á which is peculiar to the Optative and the 3sg middle secondary
ending -i which is peculiar to the so-called Passive Aorist have been omitted from the table for ease of exposition.
4
As regards future time reference, this mainly applies to the Present Subjunctive which will not be included in the
present discussion.
5
Note, however, that a small number of punctual achievement verbs do not seem to have a regular Present stem
in the Indo-Iranian languages but instead have a Perfect stem with a stative present meaning (cf. Kümmel 2000 and
the second part of this paper).
6
Note that the Vedic data indicate that the Present Indicative may have been only one among several verbal cate-
gories that could be used in performative sentences in Indo-Iranian (cf. Dahl 2008).
7
As regards future time reference, this partly applies to the Aorist Subjunctive which will be left out of the present
discussion and partly to the Aorist Injunctive which will be briefly addressed below.
8
Skjærvø (2009:131) notes that the Avestan Aorist Injunctive is used to express ‘anteriority’ something which
might be taken to imply that it also represented the main expression of relative past in Iranian. However, I have
found no certain examples of Avestan Aorist Injunctive forms with a properly relative past meaning. Note that this
might provide another context type where the augment may have represented an optional marker of past tense in
Indo-Iranian.
9
The claim that the Homeric Present stem was associated with a simple past ⁄ present reading might appear prob-
lematic to some readers, as the Homeric Present Indicative and Imperfect are generally regarded as markedly imper-
fective (cf. e.g. Schwytzer and Debrunner 1950:270–80). This somewhat controversial assumption is based on the
observation that the Homeric Present Indicative is used in performative sentences and that the Homeric Imperfect
is occasionally used to denote situations which have been completed at some time in the past (cf. Chantraine
1963:194; Schwytzer and Debrunner 1950:276–7).
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1749818x, 2011, 5, Downloaded from https://compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1749-818X.2011.00273.x by Thirion Paul - Dge, Wiley Online Library on [15/03/2023].

Tense and Aspect in Indo-Iranian Part 1: The Present and

ª 2011 The Author

Tense and Aspect in a Comparative–Historical Perspective

m1’ m1” m1n m2’ m2” m2n

Fig 1. Lexically and contextually determined readings as networks of structured polysemy.

Table 1. The Indo-Iranian primary endings.

Table 2. The Indo-Iranian secondary endings.

The Present Stem

The Present Indicative

Similar constructions are attested in Homeric Greek:

The Present Injunctive

The Aorist Stem

The Aorist Indicative

The Aorist Injunctive

Second, the Aorist Injunctive could have future time reference:

In contrast, the neutral Present Injunctive tends to have a prohibitive or ‘inhibitive’

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