R̥gvedic depictive adjectival compounds and their functions

1 Introduction

Ancient Indo-European languages, and Vedic Sanskrit in particular, are well-known for their propensity to use agreeing adjectival expressions to convey adjunct semantics as already acknowledged by Delbrück (1893–1900: 1, 453):

Häufig finden wir, namentlich in den älteren Phasen der indogermanischen Sprachen, den adjektivischen Ausdruck, wo wir Modernen es vorziehen, dem Verbum durch einen adverbialen oder präpositionalen Ausdruck eine Ergänzung hinzuzufügen. [Often, especially in ancient Indo-European languages, we find an adjectival expression where modern languages prefer to add a modification to the verb through an adverbial or prepositional expression.]

To illustrate Delbrück’s observation, in (1a) the comitative expression, which modifies the event, takes the adjective suffix -vant- and agrees in number with the participant (2du, indexed on the verb). In (1b) an alternative comitative construction, the comitative expression índra-, lacks adjectival properties and takes the instrumental case instead.

In other contexts mitrā́váruṇavant- can be used as an adnominal modifier as well, and so can any other adjective by definition. For example, both āśávaḥ in (2a) and āśúm in (2b) from āśú- ‘quick, swift’ agree with árvantaḥ ‘horse’ and árvantam ‘horse’ in number, gender, and case, but they differ with respect to the constituent they modify: attributive āśúm modifies the noun it agrees with, while āśávaḥ, much like mitrā́váruṇavantā in (1a), modifies the verb rather than the noun whose number, gender, and case specifications it shares.

For describing adjectives such as the comitative expression mitrā́váruṇavantā in (1a) or the manner expression āśávaḥ in (2a) we follow the approach taken by Himmelmann and Schultze-Berndt (2005: 26) and use the term Depictives in the broad sense (depictive _{b.s .} for short), a cover term for depictives proper and circumstantial secondary predications. As for the semantic relations of depictives_b.s., Himmelmann and Schultze-Berndt (2005: 27–50, summarized in Fig. 1.1, p. 29) list, based on a cross-linguistic study, over 20 distinct functions, including concomitance (= comitative), manner, posture, benefactive, purpose, intention, etc.

In the realm of Vedic depictives_b.s., adjectival compounds are of particular interest because they are abundantly used and add another level of syntactic complexity in event elaboration. The relevance of this class of compounds in the conceptualization of events was long ago pointed out by Schroeder,^[1] a strand of research that has gained traction in recent years (Casaretto 2020; Scarlata and Widmer 2020; Sommer 2017; Widmer and Scarlata 2017).

Building on these findings, the present article has the modest aim to explore and chart in a preliminary way the functional domains of R̥gvedic adjectival compounds when used as depictives_b.s.. To do so, we first discuss possible cues that help to distinguish between attributive and depictive_b.s. use of adjectival compounds on morphosyntactic grounds (Section 2). A preliminary list of semantic relations expressed by depictive_b.s. adjectival compounds is presented in Section 3, along with one example per relation; full philological discussion of many examples is available in a separate data appendix. Section 4 sums up and discusses the main results and implications of the present investigation.

2 Attributive versus depictive_b.s. use

Adjectival compounds assume a wide variety of functions at different syntactic levels, in particular adnominal attributes or depictives_b.s., and in a given context, it is oftentimes difficult to tell levels of attachment and functions apart because of the lack of unequivocal morphosyntactic and prosodic clues. Therefore, interpretation heavily relies on pragmatics and context, but this often leads to disputable results, since our understanding of the R̥gvedic world and its religious system is far from being comprehensive. In case of doubt, most translators opt for uncontroversial solutions by leaving potential semantic relations unexpressed. This practice often results in superficial word-by-word translations that gloss over content-related issues. However, recent scholarship has made it clear that there are indeed subtle morphosyntactic clues that sometimes help to distinguish between uses (Casaretto 2020, Section 1.1; Casaretto and Reinöhl, in press). This is an important finding because it shows that the distinction between depictive and adnominal use of adjectives is not a mere artefact of interpretation and translation. We will discuss three morphosyntactic and syntactic distinctions in the following subsections.

3 Functional domains of Vedic compounds

In this section we summarize the various functions R̥gvedic compounds assume when not used as attributes or appositions. Function labels are assigned according to Schultze-Berndt and Himmelmann (2004), Himmelmann and Schultze-Berndt (2005), and for each relation we provide an example from the R̥gveda. Given that many aspects of the Vedic world and its religious beliefs and practices are still unclear, we have aimed at selecting instances that are maximally clear and on whose interpretation Vedic scholarship tends to agree. Most importantly, the list we provide in this section is by no means meant to be exhaustive, nor do we claim that the interpretations we favour are beyond dispute. We see it as a starting point, and incentive, for further research.

For the sake of brevity, we present the material without discussion. All examples adduced in this section are extensively commented on in a separate data appendix, to which we refer the reader for a comprehensive documentation (available at https://gitlab.uzh.ch/paul.widmer/vedic-depictives).

For organisational rather than ontological reasons we basically follow Schultze-Berndt and Himmelmann (2004), Himmelmann and Schultze-Berndt (2005) and distinguish the following three major functional domains along syntactic and pragmatic dimensions.

• Depictives proper: depictives_b.s. that express mental or emotional conditions, posture and configuration, manner, comparison, function and role, life stage, quantification and order, concomitance and association, location and direction, time and atmospherical conditions (Himmelmann and Schultze-Berndt 2005: 30–40).

• Asserted states of affairs: depictives_b.s. that very much like converbs, participles, and event nominals express asserted simultaneous, anterior, or subsequent states of affairs relative to the matrix predication (Himmelmann and Schultze-Berndt 2005: 40–42; Schultze-Berndt and Himmelmann 2004: 98–106).

• Presupposed states of affairs: depictives_b.s. that express states of affairs which are not part of the assertion, but rather convey information which is presupposed (e.g. temporal, causal, concessive, conditional relations).

In addition, the data appendix discusses examples of adjectives including some compounds in resultative function, a notion that is often expressed by complex predicates (Himmelmann and Schultze-Berndt 2005: 4).

4 Discussion and conclusions

Taking up a suggestion initially made by Schroeder and Delbrück, we explored and charted the contribution made by depictive_b.s. compounds to event elaboration in R̥gvedic Sanskrit. We first pointed out three morphosyntactic properties that show that there is a formal difference between attributive and depictive_b.s. compounds. In most cases, however, the interpretation heavily relies on contextual parameters, which are not easy to control for.

As for the semantic relations that depictive_b.s. compounds establish we find that most of the semantic domains described by Himmelmann and Schultze-Berndt (2005) are represented in the R̥gvedic corpus. In particular, these compounds are also used for linking asserted and presupposed states of affairs to other predicates, expressing all major semantic relations usually covered by clause linking devices, finite and non-finite.

This finding is relevant because it shows that in Vedic, depictive_b.s. compounds are partly on a par with non-finite clause linking devices such as participial constructions, converbs, infinitives, verbal nouns, and absolutive constructions. Moreover, it foreshadows the increasing importance of non-finite predication in the history of Sanskrit, compounds playing an important role in this process (cf. most recently Hellwig 2019). Interestingly, a comparable use of depictive_b.s. compounds is also attested in Avestan (Sommer 2017), but it has not been reported to be anywhere near as important in event elaboration in any other branch of Indo-European outside of Indo-Iranian.

We propose that if taken seriously, Schroeder’s and Delbrück’s observations about the various uses of Vedic adjectives in general and adjectival compounds in particular have the potential to substantially enhance the understanding of event elaboration and semantic relations at any syntactic level, and thus pave the way for a better understanding of Vedic culture. After all, the Vedic texts are our prime source of knowledge of Vedic culture: comprehending the full range of possible relations between linguistic elements is the conditio sine qua non for a full understanding of the Vedic texts and, ultimately, the world they represent.

Abbreviations

ADJZ

Adjectivizer

AOR

Aorist

CPR

Comparative

EMPH

Emphatic

INJ

Injunctive

KS

Kāṭha-Saṁhitā

MP

Mediopassive

MS

Maitrāyaṇı̄ Saṁhitā

PTCL

Particle

RV

R̥gveda-Saṁhitā

SUP

Superlative

TS

Taittirı̄ya-Saṁhitā