The Indo-European Adverb in diachronic and typological perspective

Pierluigi Cuzzolin, Bergamo / Ignazio Putzu, Cagliari/ Paolo Ramat, Pavia

PART I
1. General remarks on Adverb
The aim of the present paper is twofold: 1) to define some controversial aspects concerning the
notion of adverbiality both from a formal and a conceptual viewpoint; 2) to apply the results of
such an analysis to the oldest stages of some Indo-European languages within the framework of
the so-called dynamic typology.
It is undeniable that there are some points within the picture sketched here which are still
under discussion : these will be left open to further investigation.
The reconstruction of Adverb (henceforth ADV) is a thorny issue: we refer to Putzu/Ramat (in
press) for a thorough discussion. In one of his fundamental contributions to Indo-European
linguistics, Jerzy Kurylowicz treated the relation between adverbs and adpositions in a way which
has been widely accepted (1964: 171):
The fact that in the I.E. languages many an indeclinable may function both as preverb and as
preposition has been a sufficient reason for attributing to them an adverbial origin. Such an
assumption fully accounts for their subsequent functional bifurcation.

1.1. From the typological comparison viewpoint , it is well-known that there are languages in
which forms occur that are described as adverbial, even though they do not exhibit the features
which are peculiar for adverbs, at least according to the Western linguistic tradition.
In yidi? and numerous other languages of Australia (both pama-nyungan and non-pama-nyungan:
Dixon/Aikhenvald 2002: 181-183), adverbs tend to be marked with the same markers of the verbs
they modify. Palau, a language spoken in the Philippines (Hagge 1985) employs verbs as well as
noun phrases, both accompanied by a relational marker r, in adverbial function. In Maori,
adverbs show agreement with the verb only for diathesis (active or passive). In Avar, some
adverbs (depending on their phonological shape) may show agreement in noun class with the
absolutive phrase of their clause. Recall that this is the same pattern as agreement in Avar verbs,
although the adverbs are not marked for other categories, such as tense, which are specified for
verbs (Anderson 1985: 200-201).
It is also worth mentioning the type cited by Talmy Givn: Unlike the categories noun,
verb and adjective, adverbs are a rather mixed lexical class, semantically, morphologically and
syntactically. Many adverbs are full sentential constructions rather than one-word lexical items
[] But even single adverbial words display relatively little cross-language comparability. Unlike
nouns, verbs and to some extent adjectives, adverbs tend to be derived from other lexical words
[. ] In some languages, noun, verb or adjective stems may become incorporated into the verbal
word when functioning as manner adverbs (Givn 1984: I 80, emphasis original). In Ute the
following examples occur:
( 1 ) ute
i. noun-derived adverb: mam-ci woman and mam-pagywa-y
woman-walk-IMM[ediate]

The research was funded in 2001-2003 by the Italian Ministry for University, Scientific Research and
Technology (MURST). The general title of the program was Mutamenti tipologici nella morfosintassi delle
lingue indoeuropee (COFIN # 2001 105242). Seven Italian universities participated in the project: The
Istituto Universitario Orientale in Naples (now Univers. degli Studi di Napoli LOrientale), the Libera
Universit Maria Assunta in Rome, the University of Pavia, the University of Rome La Sapienza, the
University of Trieste, the University of Viterbo (Universit della Tuscia), and the Universit per Stranieri in
Siena. The general coordinator of the project was Prof. Giorgio Banti of the Orientale.
Part I is due to Pierluigi Cuzzolin and Paolo Ramat, Part II to Ignazio Putzu. It goes without saying that
the whole paper was discussed and worked out together.

(he) is walking like a woman

ii. verb-derived adverb: tun- hunt and tun-voro-
hunt-walk-IMM
(he) is hunting around, he is walking-hunting.
In this case the nominal, verbal or adjectival stem, when it has an adverbial function, loses all
markers identifying it as a noun, an adjective or a verb. Something similar occurs in the I.-E.
languages, where the accusative neuter of the adjective occurs with adverbial function in
expressions like Gr. *L NT<,\F"H Sapph. 31 Voigt, vv. 3-4) = lat. dulce loquentem (cfr. Hor.
Odes I,22,24 f. dulce ridentem Lalagen amabo,/ dulce loquentem, which was to become a literary
tpos: Chi non sa come dolce ella sospira/ e come dolce parla e dolce ride, Petrarca, Rerum
Vulgarium Fragmenta 159,13 f.). Basically, the purely adjectival stem is used, even though an
accusative neuter with zero ending is in opposition to all other inflected forms provided with
endings.
The complex inventory occurring in the non-I.-E. languages we have been referring to
something that makes a general definition of ADV difficult to provide - is analysable, in our
opinion, keeping two relevant aspects in mind. First of all, the great morpho-syntactic variability
of the languages mentioned above, showing that some characteristics of the ADV are intimately
connected with the linguistic type these languages belong to. Just to give an example, adverbs
exhibiting features proper to verb tend to occur in isolating or agglutinative rather than fusional
languages . Secondly, each of the aforementioned adverbial forms exhibits a different degree of
integration into the predicative nucleus of the sentence: at one pole, those ADVs which are fully
integrated and represent core arguments, and at the other pole, the ADVs which are pure adjuncts
and therefore may be omitted while the sentence remains grammatical.. Of course, one could ask,
with Anderson (1985], whether the close parallelism between the behaviour of verbs and adverbs
enables us to really speak of adverbs, but the question, reformulated within our framework, loses
its provocative force and can at least preliminarily, receive an answer,.
More generally, in non-Indo-European languages, the adverb apparently has a form closer
to inflection, thus revoking in discussion, at least as far as Indo-European languages are
concerned, one of its basic features, i.e. that of not exhibiting agreement, differently, for instance,
from the ADJ. In fact in hua (East New Guinea highlands, Diessel 1999: 28), demonstrative
pronouns contain three elements: a demonstrative root, a (non-locative) case marker, and the
suffix bo, which Haiman (1980: 228) analyses as a nominaliser. On the contrary, the
demonstrative adverb is allegedly formed by the same deictic root, without including, however, the
nominaliser bo, and therefore cannot be classified as a demonstrative pronoun in locative
case (Diessel 1999: 28). See the following examples:
( 2 ) hua (Haiman 1980: 259 in Diessel 1999: 28)
a. ma- bo mamu
prox-nlz-erg
this (one)
b. ma-roga
prox-loc
here, hither.
(see Putzu / Ramat, in press)
There are languages like Hungarian, which show ADP postposed (POSP) with agreement: in this
case ADV and ADP show a pattern of behaviour completely different from that shown by ADV
and ADP in the I.-E. tradition:
( 3 ) Pter-nek alatt-a
P.-DAT under-3Sg.
under P.
the prepositional phrase behaves exactly like the noun phrase, showing double marking both on
the head and in the dependence:

( 3 bis) Pter-nek lb-a

P.-DAT foot-3Sg.
P.s foot
(see Stephen Matthews in LINGTYP@LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG, 15.XII.2003). Claude
Hagge (p.c.) has paradoxically remarked that the adverb is rather a peculiarity of the I.-E.
languages and many linguistic families do not even possess it.
Taking into account this great range of morphological formations, to which others could be
added, the first reaction should be that of discarding a category bonne tout faire. We quote
Pottier: Il semble que lon ait mis dans les grammaires sous la rubrique adverbes tous les mots
dont on ne savait que faire (Pottier 1962: 53).
However, the very fact that this label, coined by the Greek grammarians (Gr. ep irrhma
[what is ] beside the verb: ad-verbium), is still in use after two thousand years shows that, at least
intuitively, it consists of a functional core, and of one or more features common to a certain
number of linguistic objects at the semantic, morphological and syntactic levels. Linguists of
Western tradition continue to employ the labels adverbs and adverbiality even when describing
languages typologically very different from the I.-E. type.
The first difficulty is therefore to identify a category that groups adverbs consistently,
separating them, if possible, from other elements, which are often formally coinciding but
functionally different, just like preverbs (PREV) and adpositions (ADP).
A further difficulty is that, as mentioned above, the delimitation of word formation from
inflection is not equally strict everywhere [) and within word formation at its most typical,
compounding is not always equally clearly distinguished from derivation (Plank 2003: 8].

2. Adverbs in Indo-European
Consequently, the problem is to ascertain whether, besides the set of deictics of the hic and nunc
type which are clearly ascribable to PIE, there are any other adverbs that can be reasonably
ascribed to Proto-Indo-European and what they are. More generally, the problem is to ascertain
whether and how PIE formally expressed the functions that almost every ancient I.-E. language
later expressed through the lexical category of the adverb.
The innovation that characterises the history of the I.-E. languages is the development of a
special type of adverb that: a) from the functional point of view basically expresses way or
manner; b) from the formal point of view is characterised by structural transparency and
morpholexical productivity (diagrammaticity). Such an innovation was extraordinarily productive
in all branches of Indo-European. What is noteworthy is that each branch followed the same
process of formation, even though with different morpholexical material. We will come back to
this aspect later.
What has been said so far leads to the individuation of two classes of adverbs: the first is
represented by deictic adverbs that can be defined according to the traits of opacity and nonproductivity (hic, nunc); the second by adverbs of manner that can be derived through highly
productive word-formation rules, such as clear-ly, merri-ly.
2.1. Even though not central to the arguments worked out in this paper, the following question
which is certainly relevant to the definition of Adverb, arises,: which of the two aforementioned
classes better meets the criteria by which we define adverb (see Ramat 2002) ? Two approaches
are possible and therefore two solutions, even though however neither of them is mutually
exclusive.
According to the first approach (see Ramat / Ricca 1994, Ramat / Ricca 1998, and Putzu /
Ramat, in press), the most typical adverbs are those of the first class. Such an approach aims at
cross-linguistic comparison on a large scale and consequently employs general definitory traits,
like the tendency to lexicalisation and therefore morphological opacity and non-productivity.
On the contrary, at least for a modern western language speaker, the most typical adverb, is
the one that can be defined as characterised by high diagrammaticity, i. e. a clear and systematic
relation between formal segments and semantic correlates and, consequently, by morphological

transparency and productivity: see, for instance, the English adverbs in ly or the German adverbs
in (er)weise.
To adopt one approach rather that the other mainly depends on the type of investigation to
be carried out and on the breadth of the comparison domain : the first approach turns out to be
suitable for the comparison of languages from different families, whereas the second accounts for
the fact that our western language speaker intuitively recognises as typically adverbial the forms
that do not conform to the first type: for example, s/he will recognise as typically adverbial the
form allegramente merrily rather than qui here .
If it is evident that glcklicherweise, heureusement, certainly, feliciter are adverbs formed
according to specific word-formation rules, how should we evaluate forms such as Lat. sursum,
statim, certe, Gr. dhn etc.? Etymological analysis gives confirmation for some adverbs (Lat.
sursum, statim) and hypothesises with high probability for others (Gr. dhn) that they are forms
provided with inflectional endings, more precisely in the accusative case. What remains unclear,
however, is the reason why forms such as extra outside, supra above exhibit the feminine
ending whereas certe certainly has to be traced back to a masculine or a neuter ablative. Vittore
Pisani (1949: 151) considered these suffixes, exactly like the ones in *-d h i of oikoJi at
home, *-d h en of ouranJen from the sky as speciali (frozen formsdisassociated from
paradigms , according to the formulation by Winfred Lehmann 1974: 232). It seems impossible to
relate these special suffixes to the case system that a cross-linguistic comparison enables us to
reconstruct, as on the contrary is the case for the instrumental *-phi(n), attested in Homer: fi and
bhji both meaning with strength, violently and sometimes having an adverbial value. Case
forms such as olim or dhn are certainly less transparent than the ones occurring in adverbs such as
Gr. ()oikoi, at home or Lat. domi at home, Gr. nuktoj by nightor Goth. nahts by
night, with clear and regular locative and genitive endings, respectively. At this point, it is not
useless to recall that the Greek grammarians already considered the adverbs ending in wj as the
sixth case, implicitly confirming what we have claimed so far, i.e. that it is difficult to draw a neat
borderline between inflection and word-formation rules.1
2.2. Consequently, the definition of the category ADV as a part of speech cannot but take into
account both formal and functional criteria. In the following pages we resume the line of reasoning
according to which we have defined the monorhematic (monolexical) I.-E. ADV:
I. From the morphosyntactic viewpoint:
a. Adverbs are lexemes that do not vary from the morphological viewpoint. They can be
lexicalised elements, i.e. they have an opaque morphosyntactic structure (like xqej yesterday)
and form a close, non-productive class (see Lat. noct-u by night parallel to di-u by day; but
the ablatives of nox and dies are nocte and die). Whereas **in diu is not attested, in (hoc) die is a
possible, well attested phrase. Prepositional phrases, or even whole short sentences with adverbial
value underwent a process of lexicalisation, giving monorhematic adverbs with frozen,
unmodifiable word order: for instance, in Latin one never finds **sit fors an, but only forsitan
perhaps. Expressions such as fors fuat an/ut never became monorhematic adverbs and still have
to be accounted for as phraseological. Monorhematic, i.e. monolexical adverbs represent the
prototype of this category. There are at least two remarks that have to be taken into account: first
of all, this criterion is crucially bound to the morphological structure of the language in question. It
means that the monorhematic adverb only represents the prototypical adverb in those languages in
which polyrhematic expressions such as in hoc die beside hodie are also possible. The issue loses
its relevance in languages with an isolating morphology like Chinese. Secondly, the label
lexicalisation, if conceived as a process parallel to grammaticalization, presupposes that the
adverb, or the phrase from which the adverb developed, was originally polyrhematic, as Lat. clara
mente clearly.
1

Haspelmath (1996) suggests considering English adverbs in -ly as inflectional, even though they
undoubtedly derive from a compound of *-li o (< germ. *lika(n) body). Of course preliminary to such a
suggestion should come the discussion on what can, or even must be considered inflection, both from a
diachronic and synchronic viewpoint. For a discussion on Haspelmaths assumptions, see Ricca (1998); see
also Van der Auwera (1994: 40a).

b. Since ADV is an independent word, it has a relative semantic autonomy: in fact, unless it is an
ARG of the PRED, it can be deleted or omitted in a sentence, but the sentence remains fully
correct from the grammatical point of view.
c. Even from the syntactical viewpoint, ADV is relatively free: its syntactic position depends on
the part it modifies (the verb, the noun, the adjective or also another adverb: Gr. mla skhedn
trs voisin, very nearly; Lat. valde bene trs bien, very well).
II. From the functional point of view:
a. ADV is a modifier. There are several types of modifiers: modifiers of verbal phrases, those that
refer only to the predicate, and those whose scope is outside the predicate. If adverbs of manner,
place, time, are inside the predicate, they have to be considered as arguments of the predicate,
because they fill a valency of the predicate. Therefore, one can claim that they modify the head
which is not self-sufficient from the semantic point of view, just as in the case of verbs of
movement: one cannot simply go, but has to specify the direction of movement: for example, Lat.
ire intro ac foras go inside and outside, i.e. to enter and to exit, Lat. venire obviam to go
towards. On the contrary, if the modifiers are outside the predicate, they are not arguments, but
adjuncts that occur beside a self-sufficient head: this is the case for optime in hic manebimus
optime; hic manebimus we will remain here is a complete and absolutely acceptable sentence.
Hic, on the contrary, is an argument of manebimus well remain, well stay: in fact, one
necessarily remains, stays somewhere.
b. From the point of view of the semantic roles, adverbs in Indo-European express lexically
the notions of time, place, manner, and means.
As observed above, in order to define the category of ADV it is necessary to take into
account syntax, semantics and morphology, according to a global perspective. In fact, in many
languages plurifunctional morphemes and multicategorial terms exist. French, a language that
offers a large amount of diachronic and diatopic documentation, has recently been investigated
from this point of view (see Marchello-Nizia 2002): entre, en, de are prepositions (PREP) but also
preverbs (PREV) (and even nominal prefixes). PREVs can be inseparable (prfixes lexicaliss)
or separable (for example Deu sen partiz de mei [Li quatre livre des Reis, 110); Et sentresont
venu [Chevalier au cygne, 125) where entre is bound to the auxiliary; cf. Buridant 2000: 439,
440). Aval (< AD VALLEM) appears at the beginning of the 12th . as ADV and also as PREP
sans quon puisse dire si lun des emplois a prcd lautre (Marchello-Nizia (2002: 209]):
( 4 ) Altresne descendit aval cest pui (Voyage de St. Brendan [a.1112),172)
Nobody else went down this hill,
where aval, so to say, looks leftwards to the verb of movement and rightwards to the
complement of place 2 . The situation is not different from the one still occurring in contemporary
Italian:
( 5 ) a. togliamo via dalla testa
lit. let us take off (our hats) from our heads
b. scendi gi dalle scale!
come down from the stairs
There are two possible readings:
( 6 ) a [togliamo via ADV)VP [dalla testa)PP
b [scendi gi ADV)VP [dalle scale)P P
or

Subsequently French tends to distinguish ADV from PREP and PREV: this is the case of tres (< TRANS)
that established itself as PREV in forms such as traverser, and as ADV in the form trs. But in OFr. we still
find Qui mat apris a chanter tres manfance (Conon de Bthune [1170-1190]) who taught me to sing when
I was a child

( 7 ) a [togliamo ] V [[via da]PREP la testaNP ]PP

b [scendi]V [[gi da]PREP le scale NP ]PP
The situation is not even different from the one found comparing the oldest I.-E. languages with
examples such as:
( 8 ) kefalhj apo far oj eleske (Od. 8,88)
Ulysses raised his veil from his head
(cf. Adrados 1975: 844; Nocentini 1992: 228 f.) 3 . Also the usage of the ADV/ADP in postverbal
and/or sentence final position can be analysed in this perspective: drink your milk up!, trinke es
aus! The function of up and aus is to provide aspectual information about the action expressed by
the verb (see Vincent 1999: 1119). With regard to this aspectual value of ADV/ADP, see cases
such as Lat. taceo but preterite con-ticui, premo versus opprimo, supprimo etc., with a
development towards tempo-aspectual values which probably fit into the drift space time,
which is well-known in many different linguistic traditions, and not only in Indo-European.
Later on, in many, but not all cases, preverbs combined with a verb ( ADV+V) became
inseparable from the verb, thus giving rise to new lexemes, as in Greek, where afairein is no
longer separable: cf. pinw drink vs. ekpinw drink up (as aus-trinken!), frontizw think
(intr.) vs. ekfronti zw think up (tr.) (see Romagno 2004: 174 f.):
( 9 ) I.NA URU
Kar-ga-mi an-da-an i-yah-ha-at (KBO IV 4)
DAT/LOC city Karkemish
inside
went
(cf. Gamkrelidze / Ivanov 1995: 6.6.1)
In the Germanic languages there are pairs such as to uplift vs. to lift up, Germ. bersetzen to
ferry(with the stress on the first syllable and separable prefix) vs. bersetzen to translate (with
the stress on the penultimate and inseparable prefix), Dutch doorlopen flow (stress on the first
syllable and separable) vs. doorlopen cross (stress on the penultimate and inseparable).
Evidently, the separable forms are representative of a syntactic situation where the preverb
already ADV/ADP preserves more of its original value, whereas the inseparable forms represent
a (close) class of lexemes (Van der Auwera 1999: 122 f.). Not infrequently the compound ends up
losing its semantic relation with the simple verb: Goth. got. beitan bite, but andbeitan
threaten, brikan break, but ufbrikan despise.
Chantraine clearly outlined this particular situation in his Grammaire homrique (Paris
1953: 82), when describing those elements he labelled particules: Il sagit, en ralit, de petits
mots invariables qui viennent prciser lide exprime, et qui, originellement, sont autonomes
[emphasis added]. Ils peuvent semployer soit absolument, soit ct dun verbe comme adverbes
ou comme prverbes, soit ct dun nom comme prpositions. Le texte homrique, fort
archaque, permet particulirement bien de montrer avec quelle souplesse semploient ces mots et
comment leur emp loi dans la phrase peut varier.
2.3. It is usually claimed that OV languages tend to have PREV. However, both French and Italian
besides the other Romance languages, all exhibiting dominant VO word order have preserved
the usage of PREV, either maintaining the word inherited from Latin (see, for instance,
contraddire, contraffare, disgiungere, dissociare) or creating new lexemes (see disidratare,
disinnescare, disincagliare, etc.). French still preserves a few cases of postposed ADP that specify
the verb: il viendra avec , et lon pendouilla Pierre et sa Jeannette avec). Apparently, the fortune
of PREV and ADP does not depend on the basic word order, but it is rather the syntactic position
that assigns the functional value of ADV or ADP4 : La categoria dei cosiddetti avverbi
indoeuropei indicanti determinazioni spaziali, sembra dunque essere indifferenziata, in quanto a
classe e significato lessicale, tra ADV e ADP (Putzu / Ramat, in press). It is normally claimed in
grammars that an ADP (PREP or POSP) selects, governs, a specific case. However, when the
3

De Angelis (2004] provides an interpretation of data that partially differs from ours, on the basis of metrical
and accentual reasons which can not be discussed here.
4
Thus the different positions of [the] various particle elements in the different stocks eventually led to
different word-classes (Baldi 1979: 54).

same ADP (for instance, Gr. peri around , Skr. pars beyond) can govern all the cases of
the declension, i.e. genitive, dative, accusative, (in Sanskrit also locative, ablative, and
instrumental), it means that in fact neither peri nor pars were originally bound to any specific
grammatical case. On the whole, what Meillet has already claimed about the autonomy of the
word in I.-E. is in fact undeniable. It represents a type in which the linguistic sign is very
complex, with prefixes, infixes and suffixes that determine both the semantic value and the
syntactic function. Think, for instance, of a verb such as mi-mnh-sk-ein, morphologically
hypercharacterised by reduplication, root apophonic grade, inchoative suffix, infinitive ending: all
this information conveys the meaning to start to perform intensely the acion X, where X = to
think (cf. mens tis) > to remember (cfr. mnh - ma, mnhmosun h etc.). Also think of the
corradical Lat. *mon-eyo >moneo, with the o-grade typical of the causatives + causative suffix +
1st sing ind. pres. act.: we get to make somebody think > to warn. The different I.-E. linguis tic
traditions underwent phonetic processes by which the morphological structure of the inherited
forms progressively became less analysable. They became, obviously only in part, stable lexemes,
no longer diagrammatic labels (cf. Benedetti 2003: 238sg.). It is highly doubtful that a speaker of
Latin would have been able to recognise the etymological relation between moneo and mens,
taking for granted (which is far from being unquestionable) that the class of abstract feminine
nouns in *-ti- was still identified as such (mens, and pars, but sitis and pestis).
Well, we may follow the progressive lexicalisation of the problematic category we labelled
ADV/ADP/PREV. Some of these forms specialised as adverbial lexemes, and fell into the same
category as those of the ancient common I.-E. tradition such as Gr. xqej = Skr. hys, Avest. zyo,
Lat. heri etc. whose etymology is not clear (see also in modern I.-E. languages, examples such as
Engl. yet, It. gi,5 Fr. trs etc. Other forms specialised rather as PREP (e.g. It. sopra, da, in),
whereas a small set continued as PREV, often lexicalised and no longer separable (OFr.
encumbrer and ingombrare, enseignier and insegnare ecc.).6 All cases of the nominal inflection
can have an adverbial function, even though there are cases that exert this function more
frequently: 7 these are the so-called semantic cases (DAT.[Gr. dikhi], LOC.[()oikoi], INSTR.
[ifi]), in opposition to the so-called syntactic cases: the former have a semantic value, i.e. a
non-relational, autonomous value, like location in space and time, specification of means and
manner of action; the latter rather derive their value from the syntactic function they have in the
sentence. Note, however, that both can represent an ARG of the PRED. Consequently, instead of
reconstructing an adverbial case, we may claim that I.-E. could employ the inflectional cases to
linguis tically instantiate the semantic functions that the ancient and modern I.-E. languages in later
stages lexicalised through adverbs. Morphs dedicated to the formation of adverbs (for instance,
Lat. iter) were created independently in most I.-E. languages and one can assume as it will be
clearly shown in the second part of the present paper that they were created just because of the
progressive loss of the function of the cases: specification of place, time, manner show the
tendency to abandon the inflection paradigms and to establish themselves in some autonomous
forms: see, for instance, the series of Latin adverbs in e (certe, firme), derived from an ablative in
e(d ), vs. the ablative in -o(d) of the corresponding adjectives.
2.4. To sum up:
In the ancient I.-E. languages ADV were stored in the lexicon as follows:
A) Lexemes which gave information about space and time of the predication (the so-called
circumstantials); in addition, there were focalisers, quantifiers and intersentential connecting
elements. These types of words are invariable, not transparent and their class is not productive: in
5
It is worth noting that the prepositional value is to be found in the non-monorhematic expressions gi
da, fuori da; gi and fuori are ADVs.
6
In Old French it is still possible to find the PREV en (< Lat. IN) separate from the verb: Or set il bien
qued il sen doit aler (Vie de S. Alexe, 279) Now he well knows that he has to go away, Marchello-Nizia
(2002: 203).
7
It is not possible in this paper to discuss the cases from which adverbs derive more frequently (for this
relevant issue see Cuzzolin, in press).

fact, they are prototypical adverbs according to the characteristics mentioned above, 2.2, such as,
for instance, Skr. abh, Gr. am fi, OHG. umbi, Gaul. ambi- around; Gr. proti / pro/ti, pro,
Skr. prti < I.-E. *pre/o ti , etc. A) represents the oldest core of the category ADV/ADP/PREV.
B) Later, the different linguistic traditions within the I.-E. family created a huge number of
monorhematic expressions (therefore, still lexemes) indicating the way, the manner. Even these
were invariable, but transparent from the morphosyntactic point of view and their class was
productive. These are the adverbs derived either through specific word formation rules: Greek
adverbs in w, Latin (i)ter; or by grammaticalisation like the ones mentioned in footnote 1: *liko (cf. Goth. ga-lik -o, Germ. -gleich, ecc.). Since they are derived through a process of
grammaticalisation, one can speak of an amphizone of the old I.-E. adverbial core.
It is not mere coincidence if Vedic and Classical Sanskrit have a relatively small number of
prototypical adverbial lexemes, when compared with other I.-E. ancient languages. The case
system was still strong enough to be able to express the circumstantials by itself. In fact sometimes
in Vedic, it is difficult to distinguish between an inflected form and an adverb: durena far (used
as an ADV) is the instrumental of dur far, balat vigorously is the ablative of bala strength,
etc. (cf. Lazzeroni 1997:145). On the other hand, Pinault (1995:42 ff.), investigating the relative
chronology of the Vedic texts has convincingly shown that a gradual development towards the
establishment of the ADV/ADP in preverbal position can be clearly observed.
C) The progressive weakening of the case system and the loss of its functions, which brought
about the spreading of syncretism of cases, had the result that certain forms provided with case
endings remained frozen and isolated: as is the case of Lat. olim, Gr. dh/n, etc.
At the same time the progressive weakening of the case system allowed analytical
constructions which used the ADV/ADP to express semantic roles. At this point, old lexemes such
as Germ umbi, Gr. pro/, Skr. prti etc. became true prepositions governing one inflectional case:
(10 ) NFLEX +ADP or ADP+ NFLEX
The examples quoted from Plautus by Vincent are enlightening:
( 11 ) quae ad patrem vis nuntiari? (Capt. 360)
what do you want me to report to your father?
and
( 12 ) numquid aliud vis patri nuntiari? (Capt. 400)
do you want anything else to be reported to your father?
(see Vincent 1999: 1115). The moral of this story is as follows: the coming into being of the
ADV/ADP is not an isolated phenomenon in the development of the I.-E. languages. On the
contrary, it is just a chapter of a more general typological evolution , namely the trend that led
many I.-E. languages from the synthetic type to an analytical one, which is more transparent and
diagrammatic (think, for instance, of the origin of the comparative types: plus, ms, mehr, pi,
bolee + ADJ). The usage of the phrases ADP+case follows the tendency towards transparency. It
is the same tendency that, some centuries later, would create the ADV in ment(e), -lich /-ly and
(er)weise. The history of languages often shows a cyclic movement.8
8

There are many examples that can be produced in favour of this cyclicity: cf. for instance Hagge (1978).
Another good case is represented by the drift towards esophoric forms in the verbal system, well
investigated by A. De Angelis and P. Di Giovine (in press): in I.-E. languages, namely in Germanic and IndoIranian, a progressive right dislocation of the functional load of the verb can be noticed: the paradigmatic
information originally present in the root (e.g apophony as in binden band -gebunden and the stress-shift
between singular and plural in the perfect and in the present with nasal infix: Skr. 1^ sing. yu-na-j-mi vs. 1^
plur. yu--j-mah; cf. Lat. iungo) tends to move progressively towards the end of the word, i.e. towards the
endings, and this increases the diagrammatic transparency of the paradigm.
Nowadays, however, in (colloquial) English, as well as the pan-Germanic characteristic of expanding
rather than reducing the inherited apophonic alternation in the class of so-called strong verbs (see Ramat
1988: 191), forms such as Ill cry, Id say, Ive seen occur, where the phonetic weight of the auxiliary is
minimal; without an appropriate context we are unable to decide whether ll derives from will or shall, d
from had, should or would. Apparently, a sort of verbal introflexion is on the way, not different from the one

It is now possible to substantiate the general discourse of this first part with specific data taken
from the Vedic, Greek and Latin linguistic traditions.

PART II
3. Introductory remarks
We have already stated above that the nominal morphology of the ancient Indo-European
languages, in comparison with PIE, is characterised by a general reduction of the number of cases
(and consequently, by phenomena of syncretism). While the loss of cases was still taking place, I.E. languages were already developing alternative strategies to express the different functions
proper to the various cases, i.e. on the one hand, they were developing a system of adpositions, on
the other hand, a series of adverbs.
From the point of view of morphological typology, this complex set of phenomena appears
to represent a shift from a synthetic type to a more analytic one.
In Putzu/Ramat (in press), within the framework of a dynamic perspective of the
typological phenomena, the reasons that might have caused the crisis of the case system were one
of the issues under investigation. The tentative answer was that such a crisis was bound to the
variation of the morphic indexes of fusion and synthesis (and in particular, to that of cumulation).
In fact, the more the units of a morphological system are easily segmentable and reducible to an
unambiguous meaning, the more that combinatory system functions. Therefore, it was firstly
hypothesised that the crisis of the case system can be described as a variation of the indexes of the
aforementioned parameters of fusion and synthesis; secondly, that there could be a typologically
relevant relation between the increase of those indexes, the crisis of the inflectional case system
and the development of adpositions and adverbs
In order to demonstrate this it is necessary:
1. to calculate the index of fusion and cumulation in ancient I.-E. languages and to
compare these indexes with those of modern I.-E. languages from the same linguistic
traditions (for example, Classical Greek compared with Modern Greek);
2. to check whether an increasing usage of adverbial (and also adpositional) forms
expressing spatial, temporal and finally even modal relations corresponds to a reduction
or loss of the so-called concrete cases which express(ed) the same semantic relations.
In the present paper, we have tried to test the former of the two points in question, whereas the
latter will be treated in another paper. At this moment we can simply repeat what we have already
noticed on the history of the various ancient I.-E. languages; namely that case systems are strongly
reduced with respect to PIE and that a rich and complex system of adpositions and adverbs with
spatial, temporal and modal functions co-occurs with the case reduction.

brought about by metaphony in plurals of the type teeth, geese, feet . But see on the contrary the analogical
extension which has produced the new plural books instead of the regular beech). The diagrammaticity,
which caused the replacement of the synthetic forms by analytic ones provided with an auxiliary ( I saw I
have seen) , again becomes opaque because of the phonetic erosion (Ive seen).

3.1. Definitions
In this paper we assume that the morpheme can be lexical or grammatical. According to the
European structuralist tradition, the morpheme has a twofold nature 9 . Therefore, the lexical
morpheme, or lexeme, is the combination of a morph in its phonemic shape and a semanteme, i.e.
the unit of the semantic-lexical level. In turn the grammatical morpheme is the combination of the
morph with one or mo re grammemes. By grammeme we mean the basic unit ( a quantum) of
grammatical information. For instance, given the partition of Ger. Frei-heit (/'frai-hait/), the
German morpheme {heit} phonologically realized by the morph /hait/ cumulates the
singular and feminine grammemes; or, given the partition of It. gatt-o, gatt-i (/'gatt-o/, /'gatt-i/),
the Italian morpheme {-i} phonetically realised by the morph /-i/ cumulates the plural and
masculine grammemes.
In both cases the ratio between morph, on the one hand, and grammemes on the other hand
is 1:2. On the contrary, given the partition /'kt/, /'kt-s/, the English morpheme {-s} (realised
by the morph /-s/) only encodes the pluralgrammeme: the ratio between morph and grammeme
is 1:1. Consequently, the morph /-i/ of Italian bears grammatical information which is double that

For an overview of the classical definitions of morpheme, see Berruto (1990). Greenberg (1960) adopts
the concept of morpheme as worked out by the American school (Sapir, Bloomfield). The American school,
as Lepschy (1966: 157) points out, defines morphemes as le unit minime dellanalisi morfemica, che
comprendono dunque anche i semantemi o lessemi della terminologia tradizionale e corrispondono ai
monemi di Martinet. This is not a purely terminological issue: as Lepschy (1966: 157) makes clear, la
descrizione morfologica di tipo americano comprende anche problemi di semantica e di vocabolario, ed entro
di essa resta spesso non ben chiarito lo stato del sistema grammaticale in senso ristretto (del dominio cio dei
morfemi in senso tradizionale, distinti dai lessemi). In fact, even if Greenberg (1960) disagrees with Nida on
some points (see for instance Greenberg 1960: 190), he accepts the analysis according to criteria proper to the
post-Bloomfieldian structuralism. Such an approach, as Lepschy (1966: 159) underlines, ha portato a
discussioni infinite su problemi che non possono non apparire artificiosi: p.es. in feet plurale di foot, come si
distribuiranno gli allomorfi fra i tre morfemi (che significano pied-, singolare e plurale)?. Does /f_t/
support the basic lexical meaning foot, while /-u:-/ supports singular and /-i:-/ plural? On the basis of the
proportion boy:boy-s :: man:men, Greenberg (1960: 189) analyses man as made up of only one morph
whereas he analyses men as made up of two morphs, the one meaning man and the other meaning plural.
In order to avoid similar problems, in this paper we assume that the form men is not segmentable (therefore it
counts as only one morph) and that it cumulates the semanteme man and the grammeme plural in
opposition to man, which cumulates the semanteme man and the grammeme singular.
Greenberg counts the zero morph of /i:p-0/ sheep.plural as opposed to /i:p/ sheep.singular. In this
paper we do not count the zero morph. Even though the concept of zero morph can be useful to reconstitute
symmetry in the system (but the issue is today very controversial), it seems risky to count a highly abstract
element in the same manner as all the other elements which really occur in a string. (On the unnecessary
character of the zero-morph see Haspelmath 2002: 33). It is worth noting that, with Greenbergs approach,
boy~boy-s, man~men and sheep~sheep all count the same, i.e. 1 morph in the singular, 2 morphs in the plural.
The introduction of the concept of grammeme allows for a more precise distinction between the formal level
(to which the morph has to be assigned) and the functional level (to which the grammeme has to be assigned):
in this way it is possible to count morph by morph and grammeme by grammeme (and not morphs and
grammemes together, as Greenberg is forced to do).
Greenberg had however some good reasons to analyse the way he did. For instance, Greenbergs
expedient of computing men as if it actually were **man-s enabled him to treat the non-concatenative
morphology exactly as the concatenative one. The method adopted here, does not allow the quantification of
the apophonic, metaphonic, etc. variations (man and men are considered as not being segmentable forms).
Greenberg did not worry about justifying the results of his analysis from the point of view of a general
morphological theory. He restricted himself to the problems concerning how to treat the evidence resulting
from his combinatory analysis. For example, he rightly noticed the morphological variation contrasting man
to men but he did not pay attention to justifying the claim according to which men contains two morphs just
like boy-s. Obviously, different approaches to this analysis produce different results in counting the indexes,
even if we might observe that any differences we obtained never led to mutually contradictory results (given
the low number of controversial cases). However, we do not exclude the use of Greenbergs methods for
particular cases in the future.

10

of the English morph /-s/10 . We will therefore supplement the Greenbergian analysis with an
analysis based on the concept of cumulation (see below).
We shall now define the main morphological techniques which are the object of our
quantitative analysis. Pure agglutination can be considered as the ideal 1:1 ratio (see below and
Comrie 1983: 85). Agglutination is a technique of putting together more morphemes in a word.
Morphs are linked within the word by means of slight modifications or with no modification at all
(see Greenberg 1960: 185). The linking points among the morphs in the word are the junctures
(from now on, J). The number of junctures in a word is always given by the number of morphs less
one, i.e. J= (n 1): for instance, the Italian and German words nazion-al-izz-are, nation-al-isier-en
to nationalise have 4 morphs and 3 junctures. Modification is possible at the juncture level when
the phonemes at the morph boundaries undergo changes due to contact: see the different phonetic
realisations of the Italian negative prefix: in-nominabile, im-presentabile, il-leggibile, ir-rilevante.
A consequence of the non-alteration of the morphic boundaries is constant word segmentability in
the morphic elements.
The invariability of morphs is another of the definitory traits of agglutination11 . In an ideal
totally agglutinating language, morphs would always be segmentable and invariable. Absolute
morph invariability contrasts with inflection which shows morphic variability. Comrie (1989: 49
ff.) has clearly discussed the strong difficulty of taking both parameters into account when one
wants to quantify the index of agglutination. However, for our purpose, it is not necessary to
establish the index of agglutination of the languages but only the index of fusion among morphs,
i.e. only one of the parameters usually related to agglutination. This is perfectly possible, provided
that, as Plungian (2001: 669b) underlines, the possibility of linear segmentation does not imply
morpheme invariability in all contexts. So, for our purpose of calculating the index of fusion, only
those changes that alter the morph boundaries and produce morphic fusion are relevant, as for
instance in Fr. le > au. On the contrary, the phenomenon by which the Indian ending as >-o in
samdhi [nras n >nro n] is irrelevant for our reckoning. When assembled with other morphs,
morph boundaries can
1. either remain unchanged or undergo slight phonologically conditioned changes. In this
case we speak of an automatic morph (or morpheme): for instance, vowel harmony in
Turkish12 (Case 1., below);
2. or undergo changes which are not phonologically conditioned.
Case 1. If the combination of the morphs in a word is automatically determined, then we have
agglutination. Consequently, if the combination of morphs in a word of a certain language is
(prevailingly) automatically determined, then the language is labelled agglutinative. One example
is obviously Turkish, where morphemes undergo an internal phonologically conditioned variation
without altering the morphic boundaries: adam-lar-dan from the men but ev-ler-den from the
houses, etc. Notice, however, that there can be also phonetic adaptation at the morphic boundary:
cf. Turkish isti-yor he wants with iste-mek; toplu-yor he gathers with tapla-mak and di-yor he
says with de-mek, without theBindevokal.
Case 2. The combination of morphs in a word is not automatic and the changes are the
result of phonological rules which are no longer productive. When the boundaries among morphs
are altered and cannot be automatically established or restored, it follows that the morphs
themselves are inseparable. We say that two morphs are fused into one new morph and this
10

Such a difference in terms of quantity of grammatical information cumulated by each morph cannot be
quantified if the usual approach is used, though it may be convenient and useful for other goals. According to
the traditional approach, one could claim that the Engl. morph /-s/ encodes the morpheme plural and that the
Ital. morph /-i/ encodes the morpheme masc. plural. In both cases the ratio between morph and morpheme
would be 1:1.
11
On segmentability and invariability as logically independent parameters of agglutination see Comrie
(1989: 51-52(.
12
Greenberg (1960: 190): We define automaticity as the property of the entire morpheme where every
morph is in automatic alternation with every other. The morphs of a morpheme can be subdivided into
subsets. Thus, whereas the morphs /s z iz/ of the Engl. plural morpheme {-s} alternate automatically, the
morphs /en/ (e.g. ox-en) and /-/ (e.g. sheep) do not. On the whole, the plural morpheme in English is not
automatic.

11

process is called fusion. Typologically it is the opposite process with respect to agglutination. For
example, a case in which the process of fusion is recognisable diachronically is the one involving
the genitive singular of the s-stems in Ancient Greek: *-es-os > -ous. If we disregard any
diachronic considerations, we can only notice that ous cumulates the genitive and singular
grammemes.
Only one seemingly special case is that of the allomorph due to morphology and not
phonology. For instance, in Latin the morpheme for 1st sing is in the present indicative but i
in the perfect of the indicative. It is the verbal stem that governs the allomorphy of the 1st sing
morpheme (Plungian 2001: 670). Furthermore a morphological allomorph can be employed
according to an agglutinative technique if the phonemes that are at its morphic boundaries remain
unchanged or only undergo phonological changes. One has to keep in mind that morphological
variation is often the result of the morphologisation of a forme r phonological variation, which is a
phonological variation that cannot be accounted for by means of a productive phonological rule
(e.g. the palatalization of /k/ into // before the front vowel /i/ in It. /a'mi:ko/ friend > /a'mi:i/
friends).
Fusion is a morphological technique determined by phonological reasons and consists of
the coalescence of two or more contiguous morphs (It. del < de il, Fr. le > au) in such a way that
the resulting morph simultaneously conveys the functional values originally conveyed by the
formerly separated morphs. Fusion prevents each of the different functional values from being
assigned to a morphologically identifiable segment. The index of fusion can be measured in terms
of the more or less easy segmentation of the word into its basic elements: the greater the number of
its segmentable, detachable constituents (and of their relative junctures), the smaller the index of
fusion and vice versa. Therefore, fusion is a phenomenon pertaining to the level of the form. It is
the opposite of agglutination and has the effect of reducing the grade of synthesis of a language
(see below).
Synthesis is the morphological technique that consists of the combination of distinct
morphemes in the word. The index of synthesis of a language varies on the basis of the average of
the morphemes that form the word. If I.-E. languages are examples of synthetic languages just like
the Turkic languages, the maximum of synthesis is represented by the polysynthetic languages
such as Yupik. Moreover, whereas languages such as Turkish and Yupik are also good examples
of agglutination, i.e. they do not show fusion, the historical I.-E. languages are highly fusional
(or fusive). In other words, a language that is an ideal example of synthesis is also a good
example of agglutination, i.e. a bad example of fusion, provided that morph (re)combinability is
possible because of constant word segmentability. For this reason, the increase of fusion ends up
undermining the synthetic system.
If fusion and agglutination are mainly phenomena at the formal level, they do however have
some semantic correlates: in particular as stated above the main semantic correlate of fusion is
cumulation, a phenomenon by which the same segment or morph conveys more than one
functional value (see Melcuk 1982; Plungian 2001: 672-673). The weighing of the
informational content of the segments sets cumulation as a fundamental parameter of
agglutination/fusion: we have to calculate the number of functional traits encoded in a formal
segment. We define a grammatical morph as a morph which instantiates a grammatical
morpheme (see below). In agglutinative languages only one grammeme, i.e. a unit of grammatical
information, corresponds to every grammatical morph (for the time being we shall disregard the
lexical morphs), whereas in fusional languages, more than one grammeme usually correspond to
one grammatical morph. Therefore, the ratio 1:1 (non-cumulation) between a morph and its
functional value is the main semantic characteristic of the agglutinating technique. Fusion between
morphs brings about cumulation. It is exactly this correlation that turns out to be of particular
interest. In fact, on the basis of what we have stated above, the original hypothesis can be
reformulated as follows: on the one hand an increasing index of fusion determines the reduction of
the segmentability of the morphological constituents, causing system rigidity; on the other hand, it
determines a large cumulation of functional values on one single morphological element, thus

12

causing a loss of diagrammaticity of the system. For this reason we shall now calculate the index
of fusion and the index of cumulation first.

3.2. Criteria of analysis and notation

When weighing the quantity of grammatical information, we will not take into account the
information drawn from those inherent traits that allow the collocation of a word within its own
inflectional paradigm, for instance 2nd declension for a noun, 4th conjugation for a verb, etc. It
could be important to take even these traits into account: in the Latin shift from the archaic to the
classical period there has been a clear increase of fusion. First of all, fusion involves the thematic
suffixes which assign the word to a specific class of inflection. These thematic suffixes merged
with the endings. Consider for instance: 1) Archaic Lat. popli-o-sio > Classical Lat. Publi . If we
do not consider the threefold parsing in 1) but just the twofold parsing in 2) poplio-sio or popliosio, the historical change can not be understood: parsing 1) reduces the number of morphs
(Archaic Lat. 3 > Classical Lat. 2); in parsing 2) the ratio remains 2:2.
This question involves several problems. The first of these , even though not the most
important, is the greater complexity of the calculation: for this reason Greenberg (1960) explicitly
avoided it. The second, and more significant problem is the difficulty in making an exact crosslinguistic comparison since this type of analysis is heavily based on the descriptions we find in
grammars. Grammars very often make use of categories which are not appropriate for the
description of the language they want to describe. The consequence is that the descriptive
categories are not always homogeneous. Such an analysis cannot be applied to languages like
Modern Welsh, where phonological processes have almost completely obliterated the original
internal structure of the words.
We have not taken into account the inherent traits that signal the inflectional class of the
word: see Lat. put-a -re but dorm-i -re and curr-e-re; ros-a but duen-o-s, sit-i-s, etc. Moreover,
every entry has been first analysed into morphs according to the well-known distributional criteria:
thus, for instance, Vedic vaksati has been morphologically parsed as vak -s-a-ti, with one radical
morph, two derivational morphs and an inflectional one. In the case of Gr. ba/skw whose glosses
are : <verb/1st sing./Pres./Indic./Act.> the analysis is the following:
Analysis on a formal base
Radical
morphs

Derivational
morphs

Inflectional
Morphs

-s ? -

But we shall consider to/ (det.ntr.sg.nom/acc) as being formed of only one radical morph. Such a
solution derives from Greenbergs assumption (1960: 191) according to which every word must
have at least one root morpheme. Hence in a one-morpheme word, that morpheme is necessarily a
root. The following schema is obtained:
Analysis on a formal base
Radical
morphs

Derivational
morphs

Inflectional
morphs

1
to/

As regards derivational morphemes, only those that convey grammatical meanings, such as mood,
tense and aspect in the verb, have been taken into account. Thus the -sk- infix of ba/skw has to
be calculated since it conveys an inchoative aspect, but the morphemes that only introduce a

13

lexical derivational value have not been considered. Consequently and contrary to the previous
analysis, in words like nazion-al-izz-are, nation-al-isier-en the al-suffix will not be counted,
since this is a derivational morph which has no impact on the grammatical meaning of the verb.
We have decided to restrict our analysis to those cases of derivation that interfere with the
grammatical configuration of the system rather than with the configuration of the lexicon. This is a
purely operational and even questionable choice but its motivation lies in the type of object of our
investigation, i.e. the expression of the grammatical functions concerning the cases. The results of
the analysis based on semantics are listed under the following labels:
Analysis on a semantic-functional base
Non-inflectional
grammemes

Semantemes

Inflectional
grammemes

By INFLECTIONAL we mean a quantum of information encoded by means of an inflectional

affix. When the discourse is about INFLECTIONAL GRAMMEMES it refers to those quanta of
grammatical information expressed by an inflectional affix or by apophony. On the contrary, when
the discourse is about NON INFLECTIONAL GRAMMEMES it refers to those quanta of
grammatical information NOT expressed by means of an inflectional affix. For instance, in
Classical Gr.:
fa/-te

say.pres -ind.2pl.act.13

The categories of tense and mood are not encoded by an inflectional affix but are inherent to the
stem14 . Therefore they will be counted in the column of the NON-INFLECTIONAL
GRAMMEMES (strictly speaking ind. is indicated by the suffix -o- of the stem). In addition,
gender, number and case are usually indicated by an inflectional suffix. However, in the case for
instance of the feminine singular definite article h (NOM.), they are not encoded by a segmentable
affix and have to be considered as inherent to the stem15 . So, in this case grammemes of gender,
number and case will be counted in the column of the NON-INFLECTIONAL GRAMMATICAL
GRAMMEMES.
In a slightly different way, the feminine genitive singular of the definite article th-
clearly encodes the case by means of a suffix (a segmentable morph, in opposition to i of the
dative and n of the accusative). Therefore, gender and number, which are inherent to the stem,
will be counted in the column of the NON-INFLECTIONAL GRAMMEMES, whereas the case
grammeme will be counted in the column of the INFLECTIONAL GRAMMEMES. This analysis
has the advantage, among others, of immediately allowing the calculation of the index of the
inflectional cumulation, i.e. of the number of inflectional grammemes encoded on average by an
inflectional morph.
Since prepositions form a closed inventory, we consider them as grammatical, not lexical
elements. We know very well that, strictly speaking, prepositions with a more concrete meaning,
i.e. those indicating spatial relations etc. (from, with) must be distinguished from those with a more
abstract and grammaticalised meaning such as the ones indicating relations like possession etc.
(of, to). In Greek and Latin and presumably in the ancient I.-E. languages prepositions mainly
have a concrete value: they indicate origin, direction, place, etc. In time such prepositions (+ noun
or pronoun) replaced the original forms of the noun or pronoun inflected with a semantic
equivalent. Obviously, it is neither useful nor reasonable to deny that concrete cases such as the
ablative, inessive, superessive, etc. are also endowed with grammatical relevance. Likewise,
13

NB: act = active, ind = indicative, pl = plural; pres = present.

In actual fact, we know that fa- is present through its opposition to e-fa-te; and that it is indicative
through its opposition to fhte, faite. It is the paradigm on the whole, i.e. the well-known relations in
absentia, that assigns the values of tense, mood and aspect to the verbal form.
15
In this parsing zero-morph will not be taken into consideration.
14

14

independently of their formal status, it would also neither be useful nor reasonable to deny that
even prepositions with a meaning equivalent to that of the mentioned suffixes, possess
grammatical value.
Furthermore, this assumption is consistent with what we know about the grammaticalisation
clines from noun (concrete, relational) to preposition indicating spatio-temporal relations
(Lehmann 1985; Himmelmann 1998): the noun belongs to the lexicon, the adposition is already
grammaticalised, that is, it cannot belong to the lexicon with the same title as the noun from which
it took origin)16 . In addition, on the scale of grammaticalisation, the spatial prepositions of Latin de
or ad are less grammaticalised than de of or a to of Late Latin and Romance. Finally, if
grammaticalisation is the reduction of options to obligatoriness, i.e. non-option, the shift
ADPOSITION > PREPOSITION, with the deletion of the option POSTPOSITION, is a further
trait of grammaticalisation.

3.3. Calculation of indexes

Taking Greenberg (1960) as our starting point, but adopting another technique of analysis and
other parameters, we will calculate the following indexes:
Index of synthesis. Synthesis is the number of morphemes per word. It is calculated by
dividing M/W (according to Greenberg 1960: 187) 17 , where M = number of morphemes and W =
number of words. We will work on a textual sample of 50 words in random texts. M will therefore
be the whole number of the morphs envisaged word by word in the text of 50 words.
Index of fusion. We have already claimed above (see 3.1.1) that fusion can be calculated
as a departing from the ideal ratio of agglutination, i.e. 1:1 ratio between morph and grammeme.
According to GREENBERG, the measure of agglutination which we do not calculate is given
by the rate of morphic boundaries per agglutinative construction. The index of agglutination is
calculated with the formula A/J, where A represents the whole number of agglutinations
(agglutinierende Konstruktionen) and J stands for the total of internal junctures of the words of a
sample. However in this paper we have introduced a second way of counting the junctures by
dividing the whole number of the junctures in 50 words by the 50 words analysed, thus also
including the unanalysable words, i.e. the ones that do not exhibit any internal link (J=0) . This
type of calculation, which is only apparently rougher, provides more easily comparable data not
only among different languages but also among different stages of the same language or the
languages of a certain group as regards the average of the internal analysability of the words. The
index in question will be calculated with the formula J/W.
Index of global inflection (pure inflection). This is calculated according to the formula
I/W, where I is the total of the inflectional morphs and W is the total of words in the sample.
Index of global cumulation. Cumulation is a phenomenon by which several functional
values are cumulated on, i.e. conveyed by, the same segment at the level of expression. The index
of cumulation indicates how many semantemes (from now on Sm) or grammemes (semantofunctional units at abstract level, Gr) are expressed on average by a morph (segment at the level of
expression). This index is calculated by dividing the number of semantemes/grammemes by the
number of morphs (SmGr/M). The index of cumulation is the main semantic parameter of
agglutination. In fact, an ideal agglutinative language exhibits a 1:1 ratio between functional unit
and morph.
Index of inflectional cumulation. This indicates how many functional grammatical
elements, or grammemes, are expressed on average by one inflectional morph (affix). First of all
one should point out that languages can express the same functional values either through an
inflectional strategy, or through a different one, for example through a lexical or a derivational
16
Strictly speaking, even relational nouns used for spatial locations such as fronte in villette fronte mare
already show the beginning of grammaticalisation.
17
Oddly enough, Altmann/Lehfeldt (1973: 109), even though they refer to Greenberg (1960), give the
inverted formula: W/M. As far as we know, they are the only ones.

15

strategy. Having stated this, our starting point is the categories, the traits and the functional
values which the ancient I.-E- lang uages encoded by means of inflection. Such an index is
calculated by dividing the number of grammemes encoded by means of inflection (in this specific
case, in Proto-Indo-European) by the number of inflectional morphs.
The formulae for calculating these indexes are summarized in the following table:
M/W
J/W
I/W
SmGr/M

I/Morph

Index of synthesis

M = Morpheme; W = total
number of words in a sample
Index of analysis/fusion
J = Junctures; W = total
number of words in a sample
Index of global inflection
Pure inflection: I = Inflection
morphemes; W = Word
Index of global cumulation
Gives
the
number
of
semantemes or grammemes,
i.e. how many units of the
functional level on average, are
encoded by each morph
Index
of
inflectional Gives
the
number
of
cumulation
grammemes expressed through
inflection in language X, which
on average are encoded by an
inflectional morph (affix).

The obtained values are now illustrated. The index of synthesis of the investigated languages gave
the following values:
Table 1
Language
Vedic
Hindi

M/W
2,08
1,4

Classical Greek
Modern Greek

1,92
1,78

Archaic Latin
Classical Latin
Modern Italian
Medieval Welsh
Modern Welsh

2,16
1,76
1,56
1,1
1

In line with our expectations, the oldest stages (or the archaizing varieties) of the different
linguistic traditions have provided the highest values. All varieties tend to show a reduction of
synthesis. In particular, these values depict the strong morphological conservativeness of Modern
Greek, but also highlight the deep typological changes which occurred in Romance and especially
in the Indian tradition. In Welsh, phonological changes deeply altered the word structure so that
both Medieval and Modern Welsh show a very low degree of synthesis. Still as we expected, the
segmentability of the words decreases because of the processes of fusion:

16

Table 2
Language
Vedic
Hindi

J/W
1,1
0,32

Classical Greek
Modern Greek

0,92
0,78

Archaic Latin
Classical Latin
Modern Italian

1,04
0,78
0,56

Medieval Welsh
Modern Welsh

0,1
0

The increase of fusion among morphs is signalled by the decrease of values in Table 2; these
values indicate the easiness by which the morphs themselves are segmented. The most dramatic
reduction of the segmentability of the words took place within the Indian tradition. In this case too,
this reduction was also to be expected, given the strong decrease of the index of synthesis within
the same tradition.
Generally speaking, as long as languages preserve a rich morphological system, the
reduction of the number of segmentable morphs (a consequence of fusion) and the maintenance of
the same quantity of information to be expressed determine the increase of the indexes of
cumulation (number of functional traits per formal segment). Such a situation is typical of the
ancient I.-E. languages (in particular, in their oldest stages) and also of a language like Modern
Greek, which is not only rich from the morphological point of view but also conservative, at least
with respect to the nominal system.
Table 3
Language
Vedic
Hindi

Sm.Gr/M
1,90
2,10

Classical Greek
Modern Greek

1,75
2,28

Archaic Latin
Classical Latin
Modern Italian

1,88
1,87
1,82

Medieval Welsh
Modern Welsh

1,96
1,96

Table 3 shows that in the Latin and Romance traditions the index of global cumulation is
preserved basically unchanged (the reduction of a few tenths is too small to be statistically
relevant). At any rate , this datum did not meet our expectations. On the contrary, data of the
Indian and Greek traditions completely confirm our prediction, showing a clear increase in the
index of global cumulation. We shall now confine ourselves to the analysis of just morphs and
grammemes. The reduction of the index of synthesis should imply the reduction of the inflectional
morphs per word:

17

Table 4
Language
Vedic
Hindi

I/W
0,82
0,34

Classical Greek
Modern Greek

0,72
0,60

Archaic Latin
Classical Latin
Modern Italian

0,84
0,56
0,50

Medieval Welsh
Modern Welsh

0,1
0

Data in Table 4 confirm the prediction exactly. The reduction of the inflectional morphs for the
same quantity of information to be expressed should determine an increase in the index of
inflectional cumulation. Moreover, a dramatic reduction of inflectional morphs, an aspect of the
more general reduction of synthesis, should bring about a reorganization of the morphological
system with the shift to an analytical strategy. Consequently, it also brings about a redistribution of
the functional load and therefore a decrease in the index of inflectional cumulation. In Table 5, we
analyse the data of the index of inflectional cumulation comparing them with those of the index of
synthesis (for the sake of convenience, we list them in the right-hand column):
Table 5
Language
Vedic
Hindi

Infl.Gramm./M
3,19
2,56

M/W
2,08
1,48

Classical Greek
Modern Greek

2,36
3,03

1,92
1,78

Archaic Latin
Classical Latin
Modern Italian

2,97
2,85
2,44

2,16
1,76
1,56

Medieval Welsh
Modern Welsh

1,96
1,96

1.1
1.0

Data confirm what had been predicted. From Classical Greek to Modern Greek, we can observe a
0.14 decrease of the index of synthesis, a 0.12 decrease of the inflectional index and a 0.67
increase of the index of inflectional cumulation. From Archaic Latin to Classical Latin, there is a
0.40 decrease of the index of synthesis, a 0.28 decrease of the inflectional index and a 0.12
decrease of the index of the inflectional cumulation. The reduction of the index of synthesis in this
stage is clearly not so great as to alter the synthetic-fusional-inflectional of Greek (both Ancient
and Modern) and of Latin (Archaic and Classical). But a further reduction of the index of synthesis
to that of Italian (0.20 more with respect to Latin and, on the whole, 0.60 with respect to Archaic
Latin) implies a reorganization of the system according to analytical principles. Likewise, in the
Indian tradition: from Vedic to Hindi a 0.68 decrease of the index of synthesis, a 0.48 decrease of
the index of inflection, and even a 0.63 decrease of the index of inflectional cumulation are
observed. From Medieval Welsh to Modern Welsh the indexes are stable. Nevertheless, in this

18

linguistic tradition the index of synthesis and the inflectional index are much lower with respect to
the values of the same indexes in the other linguistic traditions under examination. In Welsh, the
dramatic loss of morphological diagrammaticity brings about a strong decrease of cumulation.
Fusion effaces the internal structure of words and determines an increase of unanalysable words in
the lexicon. According to Greenberg (1960), a word which cannot be analysed into constituent
parts is a root. In Vedic, roots are 51,9% out of the total of words in the sample; in Hindi, roots are
71%; in Medieval and Modern Welsh roots are 90,9% and almost 100%, respectively.
The decrease of the index of inflectional cumulation is to be accounted for by the
dismantlement, especially in Welsh, of the rich ancient morphological system and by the resort
to analytical strategies for expressing functional values: as claimed above, the adoption of the
analytical strategy means the redistribution of the functional load onto several morphic units,
which are no longer synthetic (bound morphs), but analytical (free morphs). On the contrary,
Greek perfectly highlights the increase of the functional load as a consequence of the reduction of
synthesis and the increase of the fusion in a language whose inflectional system is still highly
developed.
The reduction of the 8 cases of PIE especially involves those Lehmann (1993, 1999: 238)
defines as adverbial, or concrete cases, such as the locative, ablative (possibly the directive, if
it existed) and the instrumental. Usually, reconstruction assigns 8 cases to PIE in the declension of
the animate gender (of the o-stems), marked with 8 endings in the singular and 6 in the plural. In
any case, the hypotheses concerning the reconstruction of PIE are not unequivocal. Therefore, we
shall simply consider 8 (the number of the morphological cases in the singular) + 6 (the
morphological cases in the plural) as an ideal reference against which we may homogeneously
calculate the deviation of the I.-E. languages in terms of preservation/dismantlement of the case
system. Whatever the approximation or even error deriving from this choice might be, what
remains important is the fact that this approximation is distributed and does not alter the ratio
among languages. Excluding from our reckoning, for simplicitys sake, the dual and the direct
cases of the neuter gender, only Old Indian preserves all the local cases of PIE but only in the
singular of the declension of the a-stem. In the singular declension of the other stems the ablative
merges with the genitive whereas in the plural, ablative and dative formally coincide. Within the
Indian linguistic tradition, Hindi has currently lost its old case system: by means of morphology, it
marks, but only partially, the opposition between direct case / indirect case and signals the
syntactic functions some even expressed by subject and direct object with a complex system of
postpositions. Mycenaean Greek shows living traces of concrete cases, of which however only
fossils are preserved in Ancient and Classical Greek. Thus, in Classical Greek only 5 cases in the
singular and 4 in the plural remain out of the 8 cases of the PIE, none of which is concrete. In
morphologically conservative Modern Greek, cases are reduced to 4 for both grammatical
numbers. In Classical Latin, where there are 6 cases in the singular and 4 in the plural, the
reduction has involved the concrete cases: the locative, of which rich and well-documented traces
remain, and the instrumental, both in the singular and plural, have been lost. The ablative
preserves an autonomous form in the singular but merges with the dative in the plural; in addition,
in the third declension nominative and accusative get confused because of phonological processes,
etc. As is well-known, the dismantlement of the case system, apart from the minor preservation in
the subsystem of the personal pronouns, is one of the most relevant traits of the emergence of the
Romance languages.
Such a state-of-affairs is summarised in Table 6. In the first line we find the percentage of
preservation of the case system on the whole (endings have been distinguished for every case); in
the second line there is the percentage of preservation of the concrete cases:

tot. %

Vedic
96,4

Classical Greek
64,3

Latin
71,4

Concrete cases %

80

20

It is easy to see that remarkably only Vedic has preserved the old system of the concrete cases. As
is well-known (see Putzu / Ramat in press, 2.4), it is only in Vedic and Sanskrit that spatial and

19

temporal relations (including instrumental/comitative ones) are expressed by inflected nominal (or
pronominal) elements, clearly traceable back to their inflectional paradigms, rather than by
adverbs or prepositional phrases 18 . The different varieties of Old Indian are at the same time the
ones that basically preserve the ancient inflectional nominal system and are those which did not
develop a system of adpositions and adverbs with a concrete function like the ones in Greek and
Latin. To a certain extent, one could even claim that the inflectional nominal system undergoes a
process of strengthening from Vedic to Sanskrit, so that in the latter a clear reduction of the usage
of adpositions is observable. As Macdonell (1968: 139) points out, whereas Vedic employs 12
adpositions of I.-E. origin, Sanskrit usually employs only 3.

4. Conclusions
To sum up, at the moment data basically confirm our original hypothesis and one of the issues we
had decided to test in our previous paper (Putzu / Ramat, in press, 2.4): an intrinsic relation
between the typological indexes of synthesis and fusion exists which is aligned with the crisis of
the inflectional morphology of cases in the nominal system. Side by side, productive processes of
new adverbial formations start being observed.
This corresponds to what we underlined at the end of the first part of this paper, i.e. there is
a drift of many linguistic traditions from the synthetic type to the analytical, more diagrammatic
type.

Abbreviations: languages

Abbreviations: grammatical terms

Avest.
Engl.

Avestan
English

ABL

Ablative

Noun

NP

Noun phrase

French

ACC

Accusative

Fr.

Gaulish
German

Object

Gaul.
Germ.

ADP

Adposition

ADV

Adverb

POSP

Postposition

PP

Prepositional phrase

Goth.

Gothic

ARG

Argument

Gr.
(P.)I.- E.

Greek

DAT

Dative

PRED

Predicate

(( Proto)Indo-European
Italian
Latin

FLEX

Flexion

PREP

Preposition

It.
Lat.

GEN

Genitive

PREV

Preverb

IND

Indicative

Verb

OFr.

Old French
Old High German
Sanskrit

VP

Verb phrase

OHG.
Skr.

INSTR

Instrumental

LOC

Locative

WFR

Word formation rules

NOM

Nominative

Texts
Classical Greek: Erodoti historiae, I, 1. (recensuit C. Hude, Oxford, Oxford University Press,
19273 ).
Modern Greek: random sentences from: Holton, David/Mackridge, Peter/Philippaki-Warburton,
Irene, Greek. A Comprehensive Grammar of the Modern Language. London & New York,
Routledge, 1997.
Archaic Latin: archaic inscriptions from: Baldi, Philip, The foundations of Latin. Berlin/New
York, Mouton de Gruyter, 1999.

18

Lazzeroni (1997: 145) (quoted in Putzu/Ramat, in press, 2.4) points out that the same phenomenon can be
observed in Sanskrit, warning however that essendo il paradigma indoeuropeo conservato in tutti i casi -
talora difficile distinguere le forme avverbiali dalle forme della declinazione nominale: du re a (str.)
lontano; bala t (abl.) fortemente; ciram (acc.) da lungo tempo ecc.. In addition, it has to be recalled
that Sanskrit does not derive from Vedic but represents another Indo-Aryan tradition.

20

Classical Latin: Cornelius Nepos, Liber de excellentibus ducibus exterarum gentium, Praef. I, 1-2.
(a cura di Leopoldo Agnes, Torino, UTET, 1977).
Italian: Italian translation of: Cornelius Nepos, Liber de excellentibus ducibus exterarum gentium,
Praef. I, 1-2. (a cura di Leopoldo Agnes, Torino, UTET, 1977, pag. 67).
Vedic: Rigveda I, 1 (Agni). (edited by: Arthur Anthony Macdonell, A Vedic Reader for Students.
Madras, Oxford University Press, 1917).
Hindi: random sentences from: Caracchi, Pinuccia, Grammatica Hindi, Torino, Manganelli, 20024 .

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