Sahasram Ati Srajas
Indo-Iranian and Indo-European Studies in Honor of
Stephanie W. Jamison
edited by Dieter Gunkel Joshua T. Katz Brent Vine Michael Weiss
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TableSJSJSJSJ ofSJSJSJSJSJSJSJSJSJSJ ContentsSJSJSJSJSJSJSJSJ
Preface ...... vii Bibliography of Stephanie W. Jamison ...... ix List of Contributors ...... xxi
, The Role of Vassal Treaties in the Maintenance of the Gary Beckman Hittite Empire ......
, The Births of the Gods and the Kindling of Fire Joel P.˚ Brereton in Rgveda . ...... , Schwa Indogermanicum and Compensatory Lengthening . . Andrew Miles Byrd , A Note on TS ...– ...... George Cardona , Proto-Indo-Iranian *stríH- and PIE *sór- ‘female, woman’ ...... George Dunkel , The Blood of Vrtra May Be All Around Us...... James L. Fitzgerald . , Homerisch πρÒκλυτος, avestisch frasruta-¯ ...... Bernhard Forssman
, Vedic indrotá- in the Ancient Near East and the Shift José Luis García˘ Ramón of PIE *h euh - ‘run’ Core IE ‘help, favor’ ...... 2 1 → , The Sanskrit Source of the Tocharian -Syllable Meter...... Dieter Gunkel × , Rhetorical Questions and Negation Olav Hackstein in Ancient Indo-European Languages ...... , The Pahlavi and Sanskrit Versions of the Gath¯ as:¯ Mark Hale What Can They Teach Us? ......
, Zur Verbalbetonung im Rgveda.˚ ...... Heinrich Hettrich , Narrative Linkage in Sanskrit ...... Hans Henrich Hock ff, Vedic stusé ‘I praise’ ...... Jay H. Jasano . , Gothic Verbal Mood Neutralization Viewed from Sanskrit . . . Brian D. Joseph , Observations sur l’intercalation du Had¯ oxt¯ Nask dans le Yasna . . . . Jean Kellens , Hittite dapi- ‘all, whole, each’ ...... Sara Kimball , The Agent Suffixes as a Window into Vedic Grammar ...... Paul Kiparsky , Rigvedic u and Related Forms Elsewhere: Jared S. Klein A Reassessment Forty Years Later ......
, The Attributive Locative in the Rgveda˚ ...... Masato Kobayashi
v Table of Contents
, Zur „Vokalisierung“ der Laryngale Martin Joachim Kümmel im Indoiranischen ...... , Tudati-presents and the t¯ezzi Principle ...... Melanie Malzahn , The Case of the Agent in Anatolian H. Craig Melchert and Proto-Indo-European ...... ,Šahs¯ at the Pass of Thermopylae ...... Angelo Mercado , Elision and Prosodic Hiatus between Monosyllabic Kanehiro Nishimura Words in Plautus and Terence ...... , Replacing locus ‘place’ in Latin locupl¯es ...... Alan J. Nussbaum , „Und von ferne sah ich den Rauch des Pferdedungs“: Thomas Oberlies Zum „Rätsellied“ RV . ...... , Judges and Courts in Ancient India: Patrick Olivelle On dharmastha and prad¯ .vivaka¯ ...... †, Old English Riddles, Comparative Poetics, Lisi Oliver and the Authorship of Beowulf...... , Rudra: ‘Red’ and ‘Cry’ in the Name Asko Parpola of the Young God of Fire, Rising Sun, and War ...... , Rebels without a Causative ...... Martin Peters , The M¯ımam¯ sa¯ Influence on the Formation Theodore N. Proferes . of the Bhagavadg¯ıta¯ ...... , Ancient Greek φε δοµαι...... Jeremy Rau , Hittite ukturi¯ : A “Thorny” Problem in Anatolian ...... Elisabeth Rieken , Phonological Rules and Dialect Geography in Ancient Greek...... Don Ringe , A Tough-talking Nun and Women’s Language Gregory Schopen in a Buddhist Monastic Code ...... , Iranian Cognates of Vedic ´sá´svant- and -´sás ...... Nicholas Sims-Williams
, Justice in Khotan ...... Prods Oktor Skjærvø e , Avestan fraspaiiaox¯ δra- and an Indo-Iranian Term Elizabeth Tucker for a Ritual Girdle ...... , Iranian Anahit¯ a-¯ and Greek Artemis: Ana Vegas Sansalvador Three Significant Coincidences ...... , Vedic ketú- ‘brightness’ Revisited: Some Additional Aurelijus Vijunas¯ Considerations ...... , On the Vedic Denominative Type putr¯ıyánt-...... Brent Vine , “Sleep” in Latin and Indo-European: Michael Weiss On the Non-verbal Origin of Latin s¯opi¯o ...... †, So What Is It to Be? ...... Martin L. West , Hittite Mediopassives in -atta ...... Kazuhiko Yoshida Index Verborum ......
vi Rhetorical Questions and Negation
in Ancient Indo-EuropeanSJSJSJSJSJSJSJSJSJSJSJSJSJSJSJSJSJSJSJSJSJSJ Languages
Nonrethorical and rhetorical questions Rhetorical questions are traditionally regarded as phenomena belonging to literary rhetoric and falling outside the scope of grammar, rather than as linguistic phenom- ena. Most grammars lack a formal category “rhetorical question”. This is because many languages use the same question format for rhetorical and nonrhetorical ques- tions. In these cases rhetorical and nonrhetorical questions are only differentiated by their propositional content. In English, interrogative structures such as () How could you X? or () Have you lost X? can indiscriminately introduce nonrhetorical or rhetor- ical questions, e.g.
(a) nonrhetorical How could you fight the crisis? (b) rhetorical How could you?! (a) nonrhetorical Have you lost your wallet? (b) rhetorical Have you lost your mind/marbles?!
Nevertheless there are languages that formally distinguish rhetorical from non- rhetorical questions. Thus for questions involving sentential negation, i.e. a negat- ed proposition ( p), older (and modern) Indo-European languages frequently ex- ¬ hibit a contrast between two functionally discrete question types. In question type (nonrhetorical), non-movement of the negation correlates with true, information- soliciting questions; in question type (rhetorical), leftward sentence negation move- ment correlates with strong counterexpectationality of a negated proposition ( p). ¬ Questions of type thus preempt an affirmative bias towards the core proposition (p), thereby canceling the solicitation of new information. In the following I will first
Offprint from Dieter Gunkel, Joshua T. Katz, Brent Vine, and Michael Weiss (eds.), Sahasram Ati Srajas: Indo-Iranian and Indo-European Studies in Honor of Stephanie W.Jamison. Copyright © Beech Stave Press, Inc. All rights reserved. Rhetorical Questions and Negation in Ancient Indo-European Languages document both correlations for modern and ancient Indo-European languages (§– ), then lay out the mechanism behind the form–function correlation (§).
English and German In English and German, the placement of the negation can distinguish between non- rhetorical and rhetorical questions. Thus in () and its (New High) German trans- lation equivalent in () low negation (a) in a non-rhetorical information-soliciting question constrasts with raised negation (b) in a rhetorical question:
(a) English, non-rhetorical, correlating with low negation Why should you not stand under a tree during a thunderstorm? (b) English, rhetorical, correlating with raised negation Why shouldn’t we take the shortcut, if there is one? (a) German, non-rhetorical, correlating with low negation Wieso sollte man sich bei Gewitter nicht unter einen Baum stellen? (b) German, rhetorical, correlating with raised negation Wieso sollte man nicht die Abkürzung nehmen, wenn es sie gibt?
Latin Latin formally differentiates inner negated polar questions and outer negated polar questions; on this subdvision cf. Ladd and Büring and Gunlogson . In- ner negated polar questions exhibit low negation, which encodes a nonrhetorical, information-soliciting question (a). By contrast, outer negated polar questions tend to move the negation n¯on to the left periphery to express counterexpectionality of the negated proposition ( p), thus yielding rhetorical questions like those in (b). Cf. ¬ Kühner and Stegmann : with further exemplification.
(a) Latin, inner negated polar question, nonrhetorical iis™ne rebus manus adferre non dubitasti this:..™ thing:.. hand:. lay.on:. doubt:. a quibus etiam oculos cohibere te religionum from which.thing:. even eye:. divert. you:. rite:. iura cogebant? law:. force:. “Did you not refrain from laying your hands on these things from which the religious rites forced you to divert even your eyes?” (Cic. Verr. ..)
(b) Latin, outer negated polar question, rhetorical non™neeum graviter tulisse arbitramini . . . ? Quod enim ... ™ he: seriously take:. think:.. . . . ? For indeed . . . “You surely don’t think he regretted . . . , do you? For . . . ” (Cic. Verr. ..) Olav Hackstein
non est iudicatus hostis Antonius? :. judge:.. enemy: Antonius: “Hasn’t Antonius been declared an enemy?” (Cic. Phil. .) non manum abstines, mastigia? hand: take.off:. whip: “Won’t you take your hand off, you scoundrel?” = “Hands off!” (Ter. Ad. )
The same form–function dichotomy (low negation nonrhetorical; high nega- ∼ tion rhetorical) recurs with negated causal content questions, expressed with why, ∼ how, and what. These exhibit low negation when placed under information focus. When however the speaker seeks to mark the negation of the proposition as counter- expectational, the negation is raised to an immediately post-interrogative position. An example of the contextual contrast of outer and inner negated why questions is found in a letter of Cicero (a–b). They contrast a dependent nonillocutional low-negation question (a), which is purely factual, with an illocutional affirmative-bias question (b), which is counterexpectational and thus exhibits high negation:
(a) Latin, low-negation, nonrhetorical, information-soliciting question Si quis requirit cur Romae non sim: quia if . ask:. why Rome: be:.. because discessus est. vacation be:. “If somebody asks why I am not at Rome: (it’s) because it’s a vacation.”
(b) Latin, high-negation, rhetorical, affirmative-bias question cur non sim in iis meis praediolis why be:.. in these:. my:. estate:. quae sunt huius temporis: which:. be:. this:. time:. “Why should I not stay on those estates of mine that are most appropriate for the season: quia frequentiam illam non facile ferrem. because multitude: that: easily bear:.. (it is) because I would hardly bear that throng.” (Cic. Att. ..)
The juxtaposition of causal interrogative and counterexpectational high negation frequently led to a formal and functional fusion (chunking) of interrogative adverb and negation. Examples are, inter alia, (Old) Latin quid™ni (Lewis and Short : s.v. quis II B : quidni “in rhet. questions,” Menge : §), and qui™n, cf. (). (For a collection of attestations, see Lindsay :–, Fleck :–.)
Rhetorical Questions and Negation in Ancient Indo-European Languages
() qui™n ego hoc rogem, quod nesciam? how™ I: this: ask:.. : not.know... “Why shouldn’t I ask this, given that I don’t know it?” (Pl. Mil. )
Sanskrit Vedic Sanskrit also exemplifies the negative raising in rhetorical questions. To take an example (), RV . contrasts a nonrhetorical low-negation question, which inquires about the suprising fact that “the Lady of the Wilderness herself doesn’t in- quire for a village or settlement” (Jamison and Brereton :), with a rhetorical, and consequently high-negation, polar question “Does fear find you at all?”: not
(a) katha¯´ gramam¯´ . ná prchasi?˚ how village: ask:. “How is that you don’t ask for the village?”
(b) ná tva¯ bh¯´ır iva vindat¯ım?˙ you: fear: almost find:. “Does fear not find you at all?” (RV ..cd; Jamison and Brereton :)
In Vedic, the correlation of high negation why not questions and non-information- soliciting, affirmative answer bias can be exemplified by the following example (c). The passage describes and praises Indra’s various violent deeds (ibid.), which are as- sumed to be well-known to the audience:
(c) ákrandayo nadyò róruvad vána¯. make.roar:. river:. roar:... wood. “‘You made the rivers roar, yourself constantly bellowing through the woods.” and culminates in an interrogative-exclamative clause:
(d) katha¯´ ná ks.on.¯´ır bhiyása¯ sám arata?¯ how war.cry:. fear: together clash:.. “How have the war cries [/Heaven and Earth] not clashed together in fear?” (RV ..cd; Jamison and Brereton :) whose content may be paraphrased as “Everybody agrees that in light of Indra’s might the war cries [/Heaven and Earth] would have clashed together in fear.”
Olav Hackstein
Hittite Sommer (: n.) observed for Hittite the tendency to raise the negation natta into sentence-initial position in rhetorical questions. Hoffner (:–) as well as Hoffner and Melchert (:–) provided an extended exemplification as well as counterexamples. These latter however do not invalidate the tendency under discus- sion, but merely confirm that we are dealing with a tendency. As will emerge below in §, raising the negation in interrogatives is driven inter alia by the pragmatic tagging of the negation as counterexpectational. Note this does not preclude there being other means of marking interrogative negation as counterexpectational. See () below for a typical contrast between nonrhetorical interrogative with low pre-verbal negation (a) and rhetorical interrogative with sentence-initial negation (b):
(a) Hittite, low-negation, nonrhetorical question nu™ war™ an kuit handa natta wemiyanzi ˘ ™™him : find:. “(He said,) ‘Why do they not find him?’ ” (VBoT i ; Hoffner :)
(b) Hittite, high-negation, rhetorical question
natta™šamaš LÚ.MEŠDUGUD tuppi hazzian harzi ˘ ˘ ™ you: dignitary:. tablet: inscribe:. :. “Has (my father) not inscribed a tablet for you dignitaries?” (KBo . obv. ; Hoffner :)
Tocharian In Tocharian low negation correlates with nonrhetorical questions. An example of a low-negation nonrhetorical question occurs in the the third act of the Maitreyasamiti- Nat¯.aka, when the Buddha’s stepmother, Mahapr¯ ajapat¯ ¯ı Gautam¯ı, wants hand over to the Buddha a golden, handwoven cotton garment as a present, but he rejects it, asking his mother to donate the garment to the Buddhist community, the Sangha,˙ instead. The Buddha’s rejection of the garment prompts Mahapraj¯ apat¯ ¯ı to inquire about the reason. Mahapraj¯ apat¯ ¯ı’s question is therefore nonrhetorical and shows low negation:
(a) Tocharian, low-negation, nonrhetorical question mänt nu täs. ptañkät¯ käs.s.i ma¯ em. tsitär™ ñi? why it buddha: teacher: seize:..™me “Why would the Buddha-god the teacher not be prepared to accept it from me?” (Toch. A, AYQ [III.] b; Ji, Winter and Pinault :–)
Rhetorical Questions and Negation in Ancient Indo-European Languages
(b) Tocharian, high-negation, rhetorical question
Tocharian A sukyo yomnas¯. ksalune, mänt ma¯ kackäl¯ joy: attain:. extinction: why rejoice.. es.äntap?¯ give:... “If he happily reaches extinction, shouldn’t a giver rejoice?” why (AYQ [I.] a; Ji, Winter and Pinault :–) (pä)[l]ska:¯ kuyal ma¯ näs. ´sol raryuräs. ksaluneyam. think:. why I: life. give.up: nirvan¯ . a: kälkim? go.. “[I] thought: why shouldn’t I, having given up my life, go into nirvan¯ . a?” (AYQ [N.] b = A af.)
Tocharian B ka ma¯ we´scerkrent [reki]? why say:. good: word: “Why don’t you say the good word?” (B b)
Conclusion The contrast between low negation interrogatives in nonrhetorical function and high negation interrogatives in rhetorical function, documented in §§–, conforms to a crosslinguistic pattern. How are we to account for this form–function relationship? The mechanism behind it is that raising the negation to a higher focus position im- mediately after the interrogative, thereby placing it under interrogative focus, is a means of marking the negation as counterexpectational. Counterexpectationality in turn amounts to a corroboration/affirmation of the core proposition and therefore cancels the question’s information-soliciting function. The correlation of rhetorical question with raised negation conforms to an optional syntactic-pragmatic mecha- nism.
References Büring, Daniel, and Christine Gunlogson. . “Aren’t positive and negative polar questions the same?” Accessed September , . http://hdl.handle.net//. Fleck, Frédérique. . Interrogation, coordination et subordination: Le latin quin. Paris: Presses de l’Université Paris-Sorbonne.
Olav Hackstein
Hoffner, Harry A., Jr. . “Studies in Hittite Grammar.” In Kaniššuwar: A Tribute to Hans G. Güterbock on His Seventy-fifth Birthday, ed. Harry A. Hoffner, Jr. and Gary M. Beckman, –. Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Hoffner, Harry A., Jr., and H. Craig Melchert. . A Grammar of the Hittite Lan- guage. Part , Reference Grammar. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. Jamison, Stephanie W., and Joel P. Brereton. . The Rigveda: The Earliest Religious Poetry from India. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ji, Xianlin, Werner Winter, and Georges-Jean Pinault. . Fragments of the Tochar- ian A Maitreyasamiti-Nat¯.aka. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Kühner, Raphael, and Carl Stegmann. . Ausführliche Grammatik der lateinischen Sprache. Vol. , part , Satzlehre. th ed. revised by Andreas Thierfelder. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Ladd, D. Robert. . “A first look at the semantics and pragmatics of negative ques- tions and tag questions.” Proceedings of the Chicago Linguistics Society :–. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society. Lewis, Charlton T., and Charles Short. . A Latin Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Lindsay, Wallace M. . Syntax of Plautus. Oxford: Parker. Menge, Hermann. . Repetitorium der lateinischen Syntax und Stilistik, th ed. re- vised by Andreas Thierfelder. Leverkusen: Gottschalk. Sommer, Ferdinand. . Die Ahhijava-Urkunden¯ . Munich: Beck. ˘˘