Ricerche di sintassi vedica

This monograph discusses some classical topics about Vedic syntax in comparative and in more general perspective. Chapter i deals with the problem of configurationality (according to the category introduced by Hale 1983 and subsequent works) in ancient Indo-European languages. Chapter ii compares Homeric Greek sentence structure, in which the pronoun derived from *so-/*to- is coreferential with NP in the same clause, with Vedic sentences introduced by the so called sá figé. Chapter iii deals with the long-standing problem of Vedic word order. For this purpose, Delbrück’s work about Indo-European syntax, especially his contribution to the analysis of Vedic syntax, is still a useful tool. In fact, the notions of basic and marked word order of sentences are already present in Delbrück’s perspective, along with the idea of constituent movements motivated, albeit through mechanisms of prosodic order, by the interface between syntax and information structure of the sentence. His most general law of Occasionelle Wortstellung should probably be differentiated into a set of movements of constituents, which can correspond to sentence orders functionally differentiated. However, the idea of reducing the apparent constituents order freedom of Vedic sentence to the interaction between a general basic word order and a general principle of movement determined by sentence information structure, makes Delbrück a true founder of the modern studies about sentence syntax. Morover, recent syntactic theories allow to add also new and more precise explanations to such constituent movements. Chapter iv deals with Vedic clitics. In his famous paper of 1892, Wackernagel, who based his analyses primarily on data from Greek, came to the conclusion that a common feature of Indo-european clitics was their placement at the “second position” of the sentence. Some cases that seemed particularly clear to him were some Homeric examples where object clitics are dislocated from their governing verbs, apparently in order to obey the second position requirement. After analysing Greek clitics placement, Wackernagel turns his attention to other Indo-european languages, and about Vedic he quotes Delbrück’s analysis of Śatapathabrāhmaṇa, according to which vedic clitics approach as much as possible to the beginning of the sentence. Wackernagel’s Law is still a good approximation in descriptive terms, however further clarifications should be made: 1) “second position” is to be understood “after the first word” or “after the first constituent”? 2) How can we explain some apparent exceptions where clitics appear still later in the sentence, also in cases where they are not only separated by other clitics from the first word of the sentence? Chapter v is dedicated to the question of the exsistence of true subordinate clauses in Vedic. Chapter vi is dedicated to the analysis of relative and correlative sentences. The study of the structure of correlative sentences is of great importance in the context of Indo-European syntax, since this strategy of relativization is present in all earliest attested Indo-European languages, or, at least in the archaic phases of some of them. Interestingly, the model of external-headed relative clauses is present today in Hindi, but it seems not to have ever developed in Vedic (nor in Hittite): in Vedic any expression of (explicit) relative clauses must make use of the correlative construction. Some recent theories about the syntax and the semantics of relative sentences can constitute an interesting interface stage between correlative sentences and external-headed relative sentences.