IFAFridayLecture originallypropertoacrostaticparadigms,wasoftengeneralizedaftervowels:cf.

17December2010 istemVed.utwithhelp<*h2uHtih1,ustemGAv.xratuwithwisdom
<*kretuh1,andthematicstems(seebelow).
Typology,grammaticalization,and The largest nominal inflectional class, the ostem or thematic
thereconstructionoftheProtoIndoEuropeancase class, was characterized by a lack of accentablaut alternations (see
system below)andasuffix*e/o(thethematicvowel). Thereconstructible
PIE desinences for thematic nominal stems generally conform to
RonaldI.Kim expectation,i.e.theygobacktothethematicvowel*o(~*e)plus
AdamMickiewiczUniversity theendingsgivenabove. AlreadybyPIE,however, theymusthave
rkim@ifa.amu.edu.pl,ronald.kim@yahoo.com adoptedsomedifferentendings,andthesequenceofsuffix+endinghad
beencontracted,givingaunitarydesinence. Inthefollowingtable,
desinenceswhichcontainorgobacktoanendingdifferentfromthatfor
1.Introduction:thePIEnumberandcasesystem athematicstemsarehighlightedinboldface.
Already in the late 1800s, historicalcomparative linguistics had
succeeded in reconstructing the case system of ProtoIndoEuropean singular dual plural collective
(PIE),andtheformsofthenumber/caseendingsintheprotolanguage. nom. *os *oh14 *s(<**oes) *eh2
Thesereconstructionshavesincebeenrevised,e.g.asaresultofthe acc. *om (=nom.) *ons *eh2
gradualacceptanceofthelaryngealconsonantphonemesforPIE,but voc. *e (=nom.) (=nom.) (=nom.)
otherwisethesystemadoptedbymostIndoEuropeanistswasessentially instr. *oh11 *ys
thesameasthatestablishedbyKarlBrugmanninhisclassicGrundri gen. *os?*osyo? *oHom
der vergleichenden Grammatik (1904, 1911), based mainly on the abl. ??2
ancient IndoIranian languages (Vedic, Old Avestan) and to a lesser dat. *y(<**oey) *os
extentontheotherancientIElanguagesknownatthetime. loc. *oi3 *oysu

singular dual plural collective

1
Cf.Lith.,o,OCSvcerayesterday<ProtoBaltoSlavic*o;
nom. *s *h1e *es *h2 Gr.? inthisway, ? ( )thus,adv. ;reflectedinAnatolianbyOH ta
acc. *m *h1e *ns(<**ms) *h2 (and)then<PIE*toh1(Rieken1999:86).
voc. * (=nom.) (=nom.) (=nom.)
2
Uncertain;cf.KimapudRinge2006:43(*eh 2ed),Hackstein2007(*e
ti),MelchertandOettinger2009:567,612(*ead).
instr. *eh11 *bhis 3
Thissequenceremaineddisyllabicintotheseparatebranches;fordetails,
gen. *s~*os~*s *oHom seeJasanoff2009.
abl. (=gen.) (=dat.) (=dat.) 4
Forthelackoffinalvowel,cf.theacuteintonationofPBS*o>Lith.
dat. *y~*ey *bh(y)os u,o,andalsothegeneralassumptionthatthisendingfelltogetherwith(coll.
loc. *(+i) *su >)neut.nom./acc.pl.*eh2 inGermanicasPG(bimoraic)*,whencethe
agreementrulebywhichnounphrasescontainingnounsofdifferentgenders
1
Cf.Ved. pasc after<*poskweh1,adverbialLat. e,OCS e, takeadjectivesintheneuterplural(Ringe2006:171).
andGreekformslikeCretanwhere(Weiss2009:201);alsoindirectlyin
Hitt. statives in e < *eh1 (or rather *eh1ye/o; Jasanoff 20023) and Theinstr.sg.andnom./acc.du.endingsreflectaruleofposttonic
inchoatives in ess < *eh1s (Rieken 2009:42). The allomorph *h1,

1
final vowel loss, e.g. nom./acc. du. *oh1 < prePIE **oh1e
(Jasanoffs Law; Jasanoff 1988:734n.10, Melchert 1994:512,
Weiss2009:114).

2
Otherrecentdevelopments:
PIEhadadistinctionofpluralvs.collective,thelattermarkedby
theending*h2(Eichner1985).Thecollectivesuppliedtheplural
forneuternouns,whichstrangelyseemnottohavehadaseparate
(count)pluralformationinPIE.
The discovery of accent/ablaut classes in the 1960s and 1970s
drastically reshaped ourunderstandingofPIEmorphophonology.
PIE had several different inflectional classes, each with a
characteristicpatternofalternationsinaccentandvowelgradation
(ablaut).Forarecentintroduction,seeFortson2009:119ff.
2.Newchallengestothetraditionalpicture
RecentpublicationsinIElinguisticshavechallengedthetraditional
reconstructionofthePIEcasesysteminseveralimportantrespects.
Hackstein(2007)comparestheablativeendings*tiand*dand
proposestoderivethembothfromacommonPIEpreform*ti
Jasanoff (2008) explores the prehistory of the instr. pl. endings,
athematic*bhisandthematic*oys
Melchert and Oettinger (2009) examine the ablative and
instrumental in Anatolian, and the evolution of the case system
fromPIEtoProtoAnatolianandtheremainingIElanguages
Thesestudiesreflect(todifferingdegrees)twomajortrendscommonto
muchresearchincontemporaryIEhistoricallinguistics:
1. continuing progress in our understanding of the synchronic and
diachronicgrammarofthetwoIEbranchesdiscoveredafter1900,
AnatolianandTocharian;and
2. the increasing cooperation between IE and general historical,
theoretical, andsociolinguistics,andapplicationoftheresultsof
modern linguistics to the study of linguistic reconstruction and
changeinthepast.
ProbablythebestexamplesofthecontributionofAnatolianarethe
reconstructionoftheallativesingularandthedativeplural.
Uniquely among the ancient IE languages, Old Hittite has a
productiveallativesingularina,e.g.arunatotheseatoaruna
sea.
Thereconstructionofthisendingisuncertain,butthePIEformmay
havebeen*h2e,andthethematicdesinence*oh2 (<**oh2e;
Melchert 1994:512,185withrefs.). Cf.Lyc.inf. Vna <*h2e
besideVne<them.*oh2(Melchert1994:325,Hajnal1995:98).
ScatteredrelicssurviveelsewhereinIE:cf.cf.Lat.quowhither
<*kwoh2;Gr.totheground<PIE*d hghmh2eplushic
etnunc*i(CowgillapudRinge2010:332).
Hittite a and Lycian e < ProtoAnatolian *os unambiguously
pointstoaPIEending*os.
Elsewherethiswasreplacedby*bhyos(>PInIr.*bhyas>Ved.
bhyah,GAv. biio)~*bhos(>Gaul. bo(s),Lat. bus)1 or*
mos (OLith. mus, OCS mu, if not from *mus) under the
influenceofadverbial*bhiresp.*m(seebelow,3).
Jasanoff(2008)explorestheprehistoryoftheinstrumentalplural
endings,athematic*bhisandthematic*oys,andconvincinglyderives
bothfromacommonancestor*is,originallyanadverbialmarker.
Thisendingispreservedinseveralsynchronicallyopaqueadverbs,
e.g.Ved. bahh outside<PIE*bheghis;Ved. vh,GAv.
uuismanifest.
As a case ending, it was replaced by *b his (PInIr. *bis;
remodeledinGr.,Arm. w~b)or*mis(PGmc.dat.pl.*miz,
cf.OEm),onceagainundertheinfluenceofadverbial*bhiresp.
*m(seebelow,3).
Inthethematicparadigm,*iswasaddedto*oy,originallythe
(pre)collectivestem,laterthepl.obliquestem;cf.loc.pl.*oysu
1 PaceWeiss(2009:207),the*bhyosunderlyingPInIr.*bhyasneednotbe
older than *bhos. The two variants could merely represent different
remodelingsofPIE*osbyadverbial*bhi.
3
and,todemon.pron.*to,gen.pl.*toysoHom,dat.*toybhyos,
etc. The sequence *oyis became *oys, by a contraction
comparabletoStangsLaw(*VR1R2>*V:R2).

4
 Melchert and Oettinger (2009) examine the ablative and
instrumentalinAnatolian,andtheevolutionofthecasesystemfrom
PIEtoProtoAnatolianandtheremainingIElanguages.

They observe that many of the classically reconstructed oblique

caseendingswereprobablystilladverbialintheprotolanguage,and
justbeginningtofillspecificcaseslots(e.g.instrumental)inthe
ancient Anatolianlanguages. Thedifferent choicesmadebythe
differentIElanguagesstronglysuggestthatthisgrammaticalization
occurredforthemostpartafterthebreakupofPIE,orevenafterthe
departureofAnatolian.

Asaresult,therevisedsetofPIEcaseandnumberendingsnow
looksasfollows.

sg. du. pl. coll.

nom. *s *h1e *es *h2
acc. *m *h1e *ns(<**ms) *h2
voc. * (=nom.) (=nom.) (=nom.)
instr. *eh1 *is
gen. *s~*os~*s *oHom
abl. (see3)
dat. *y~*ey *os
loc. *(+i) *su
all. *h2e(?)

However,thearticlesjustcitedraisetwofurther,relatedproblems,not
reflectedinthisclassicalkindoftableofendings.

Ifdat.pl.*os,instr.pl.*is,etc.werereshapedundertheinfluence
ofadverbialmarkersinmultipleIElanguages,whatdoesthatsay
abouttheirstatusinPIE? Weretheyalreadygrammaticalizedas
productivecaseendings,orweretheystill(moreorless)productive
adverbialformantsintheprotolanguage?
How did new cases arise within the system of PIE nominal
inflection, and what does this tell us about the development of
secondarycasesinthedifferentIElanguages?

5
3.Casesoradverbs?
Inadditiontothestandardlyreconstructedcases,PIEhadseveral
adverbialformantswhichwerelaterincorporatedintothecasesystem
inoneormoreIEbranches.
h e h
*b i: cf. PIE*h / b thereabouts, bythat way > to,near,
1 o
across, around (Ved. abh,OCS ob, Goth. bi); PIE*h2ntbh
sidewise>around,onbothsidesof(Lat. am(b),Gr.? ,
OIr.imm,OHGumbi);PIE*kwobhiwhere,when(Lat.(ali)cubi,
Hitt.kuwapi)
*(i)m: Lat. illim from there, exim from outside; HLuv.
abl./instr. zin, apin <*kim,*h1e/obhim(to za this, apa that;
MelchertandOettinger2009:556withrefs.);
*ti:cf.theablativecasemarkerinAnatolian(Hitt.az,azziya<
PA*ti,Luv.adi<PA*odi<*oti),Tocharian(TAs;see
4.2),andArmenian(<*eti)
*is(seeabove,2)
The exact semantics of these dimensional adverbs are notoriously
difficulttospecify.
Theycanacquireandbespecializedinavarietyofdifferentsenses:
location,motionalong,to,from,etc.;andcanshiftovertime,often
from ablative to locative to allative (Hackstein 2007:13842; cf.
MelchertandOettinger2009:57).
Cf. the frequent use of the instrumental in modern BaltoSlavic
languagestodenotemotionalong,near,to,and/orfrom,e.g.Lith.
gatvalong,by,nearthestreet,Pol. niewchodzimytyemdont
goby/through/fromtheback(door)(lit.wedontgo...).
They mayalso havediffered intheir morphosyntacticbehavior: as
observedbyMelchertandOettinger(2009:58fn.1),*bhisstressedin
e.g. *h2ntbh, whereas *ti never carries the stress. The various
reflexesof*timaythereforegobacktoPIEadverbial*(h 1)ti(Ved.
ti,Gr.? , Lat. et,etc.)usedpostpositionallywithinflectednoun
forms.
As the following examples attest, an adverbial morpheme can
becomeproductiveandbeextendedtoothernominalstems,resultingin
anew(adverbial)caseorinagrammaticalizedadverbmarker.Seee.g.
Fortson2009:119(Othercaselikeelements).
PIE*tos>Ved.tah,e.g.inpatthfromthefoot,pl.patsu
thfromthefeet(NBsuffixedtoloc.pl.!);cf.Lat.intusfrom
inside,extusfromoutside,caelitusfromheaven
PIE*dhi(cf.Gr.
? inheaven,Arm. tewoinaplace)
and*de(cf.Gr.
? tothehouse,home,Ved. kha,GAv.
kud,OCSkudewhere,Lat.undewhence).
Thesameprocesswouldthenhaveoccurredatanearlierstagewith
*bhi,*(i)m,and*ti.
Along with *is, PIE instr. sg. *eh 1 may also have been an
adverbialending,butgiventheproductivityofthereflexesof*eh 1
(thematic *oh1) and remodeled *bhis, *ois (1), their
reinterpretationascaseendingsmusthaveoccurredalreadyinpre
PIEtimes.
Althoughmanydetailsremaintobeworkedout,themainpointsof
theseargumentsarenowacceptedbyagrowingnumberofscholars,at
least inNorthAmerica andCentral Europe: seeamongothersSihler
1995:246,Klein2006:388,Fortson2009:1189,Weiss2009:2068. It
appearsincreasinglylikelythatatleastsomeoftheoblique(semantic)
cases classically reconstructed for PIE were not yet established in
nominalinflectionatthetimewhentheprotolanguagebegantobreak
up.
4. Typological change and continuity: grammaticalization of new
casesinIndoEuropean
Intraditional(IE)linguistics,nominalcasesarereconstructedfor
theprotolanguageusingthesamecomparativemethodbywhichone
reconstructsphonemes.Bycomparingfunctions,and
Vedic Greek Latin Germanic PIE
Nom N N N Nom
Acc A A A Acc
6
Voc V V V Voc Thisfacthasbeenknownforwelloveracentury,butsuchcaseshave
Instr D A (I)/D Instr usually been considered exceptions to the general drift toward
Dat D D D Dat syncretism and reduction of case morphology, and often ascribed to
Abl G A D Abl languagecontactwithnonIElanguages(cf.Fortson2009:113). The
Gen G G G Gen properincorporationoftheAnatolianandTochariandataaddstothe
Loc D (L)/D D Loc examplesofuniverbation,andallowsustoseethemasfullynatural.

This structurally inspired methodology is justified in as far as

syncretismofcaseendingsbysoundchangeandfunctionalexpansionis
the most widespread change affecting nominal inflection in the IE
languages,fromancienttomoderntimes.However,itdoesnottakeinto
account the evolution of new case endings, a crosslinguistically
commonprocesswhichisalsowelldocumentedwithinIndoEuropean.
Infact,theevolutionofnewcasesfrompostpositionsisfarfrom
uncommoninIElanguages,ancientandmodern,includingthosewhich
havemovedawayfromtheinheritedSOVconfigurationtowardSVO.

PIE *(H)ad (?) in the thematic ablative singular (see 1); pace
Hackstein(2007),probablynothistoricallyconnectedwithabl.*ti
(3)
PIE *supo under > PT *sp > TB proximative spe, e.g.
Srvastispe by/nearthecity S.;consideredaseparatecase
byWinter(1998:160;cf.Hackstein1997:3942)
OldLith.illative,allative,andadessivefrompostpositionalphrases
(Senn1966:923);cf.fossilizedill.lauko(to)outside,auksto
up(wards)inthemodernstandardlanguage
theobliquecasesofmodernIranianlanguages,mostspectacularly
inOssetic,wherethePIr.systemofeightcaseshadprobablybeen
reducedinMiddleIraniantimestoatwowayoppositionofdirect
* vs. oblique *i (still preserved in Yaghnobi), before
expandingtothemodernsystemofeightorninecases;seeTesten
1994,R.Kim2003

Cf.Ringe(2006:43)onthethematicablativesingular(1):Thisis
oneofseveralindicationsthatthecasesystemofPIEdevelopedpartly
bytheaccretionofpostpositionsoradverbs,muchlikethoseofthe
FinnoUgriclanguages.

7
Although IndoEuropean languages are typically described as having
fusional morphology, with portmanteau endings expressing case,
number, and often also inflectional class, many IE languages in fact
possessacombinationoffusionalandagglutinativemorphology,with
invariablecaseendingsattachedtonominalstems.
ThisisespeciallytrueoftheAnatolianandTocharianlanguages,
whichforlongwere(and,inthecaseofTocharian,stillusuallyis)
takentobetypologicallyexceptionalwithintheIEfamily.
Diachronically speaking, fusional morphology evolves from
agglutinative morphology as a result of sound changes which
obscuretheidentityofindividualmorphemeswithinamorphemic
sequence.
However,fusedcaseendingscanalsobereanalyzedaspostposed
cliticsattachedtoinflectednominalformsornounphrases;cf.the
historyofEnglishpossessives/s.Suchreanalysestookplacein
Iranian,Armenian,andTocharianaswell.
5.Whenlessismore:realisminreconstruction
ItfollowsthattheexactnumberofcasestobereconstructedforPIE
mustremainsomewhatuncertain.
PIE status uncontroversial: nominative, accusative, vocative,
genitive,dative,locative
PIEstatuslesscertain:instrumental(?),ablative,allative
NottraditionallyassignedtothePIEcasesystem:*ti,*tos,etc.
(4)
AlmostcertainlynotproductivecaseendingsinPIE:*bhi,*m(3)
Thisuncertaintyisnowayaweaknessoftraditionalmethodsof
comparative and internal reconstruction, but follows naturally from
limitationsofattestationandfromthevariabilityinmanyinflectional
systemsofthistype.2
Cf. Sihler (1995:246): A more accurate picture would be a case
2 Cf.e.g.theborderlinestatusofVed. tah,ortheOsseticequativein
au,whichisnottreatedasaseparatecaseinmanyearliergrammars.
systeminwhichcertainendingsandfunctionswerewellestablished
nominative, accusative, genitive/ablative, dative, and locative
whereas much of the remainder was less a case system than a
collectionofmarkersmoreorlessinflux.
Thestatusoftheintermediatecasesmustbedeterminedonformaland
semantic grounds, i.e. on the basis of morphological archaisms and
innovationsandoffunctionaldistribution.Therelativeweightgivento
differentbranchesalsoplaysacrucial,ifusuallyunspokenrole.Infact,
thetraditionalPIEcasesystemtoalargeextentstillreflectstheprimacy
ofSanskrit(viz.IndoIranian)in19thcenturyIEstudies,aswellasthe
widespread belief, mentionedabove, that the natural tendency inthe
historical development of IE languages was towards morphological
simplificationandlossofcases. 3
Inconclusion,thetraditionalassumptionunderwhichthelanguages
preserving the most distinct fusional cases are necessarily the most
archaic,whichcontinuestolurkbeneaththesurfaceofmoststudiesin
IEhistoricalmorphology,mustonceandforallbeabandoned.Thanks
tothediscoveryofnewdata(mainlyfromAnatolianandTocharian,but
also from other IE branches, e.g. Middle Iranian) and insights from
linguistictypologyandgeneralstudiesoflanguagechange,theoldview
ofdiachronicnominalinflectionasdominatedbysyncretism andthe
shiftfromsynthetictoanalyticcanandmustbereplacedbyamore
complex,nuancedpicture,inwhichmorphologicalcasesariseaswellas
disappearovertime. Suchamodelbringsusclosertotherealitiesof
language change, to what Winter (2002) termed realism in
reconstruction.
3 Cf.thepointedcommentsofSihler(1995:2467)onthePIEstatusof*tos.
8
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