Interpretation of the Tocharian subjunctive of class III

Georges-Jean Pinault (1)

1 Mondes Iranien et Indien - UMR 7528

The Tocharian subjunctive of class III is an unproductive stem formation which is attested from nine roots, in both Tocharian languages (A and B). It has exclusively middle inflection, and it shows the suffix Tocharian B -e-/A -a- in the whole paradigm. The paper discusses the position of the subjunctive in the individual verbal system of the roots in question, as well as the previous proposals concerning its origin. As several other subjunctive formations of Tocharian, it may go back to a Proto-Indo-European present formation. Because of the peculiar distribution of the suffix, this class of subjunctive is traced back to presents in *-ye/o-.

Mots clés: Indo-European linguistics; Verb Morphology; Verb Derivation and conjugation; Tocharian language

Domaines: Linguistique

Georges-Jean Pinault. Interpretation of the Tocharian subjunctive of class III. H. Craig Melchert. The Indo-European Verb. Proceedings of the Conference of the Society for Indo-European Studies (Los Angeles, 13-15 September 2010)., Ludwig Reichert Verlag, pp.257-265, 2012, 978-3-89500-864-1. ⟨halshs-01446526⟩