What can Hittite tell us about verbs in Proto-Indo-European?

Main ideas and lessons

• Before Hittite was deciphered, scholars assumed Proto-Indo-European (PIE) verbs had many inflectional categories, similar to what was known from Sanskrit, Latin, and Greek (e.g., multiple tenses/aspects/voices/moods with many different endings).
• Hittite, however, has a much simpler inflectional verb system than those classical languages:
  • Tenses: only present and past (preterite)
  • Moods: only indicative and imperative
  • Voices: only active and middle
  • Ending/conjugation types (active voice): mi endings and hi endings
• Because Hittite is the oldest attested Indo-European language and is older/more conservative than Sanskrit/Latin/Greek, its simplicity suggests PIE may have been closer to Hittite’s approach than to the highly inflected classical languages.
• Even with only two core tenses/moods/voices, Hittite can express more nuanced meanings (future, conditional, perfect tenses, imperfect-like meanings, etc.) using:
  • auxiliary verbs
  • particles
  • suffixes
  • periphrastic (helper-word) constructions
• Hittite also uses productive derivational morphology:
  • Derived verbs are created by adding suffixes to roots (often noun/adjective/verb roots), and then conjugating them with the normal present/past endings.

Verb morphology in Hittite (structured details)

1) Core inflection categories

• Tenses
  • Present
  • Past / Preterite
• Moods
  • Indicative
  • Imperative
• Voices
  • Active
  • Middle
• Active conjugation classes (ending types)
  • mi endings (named from 1st-person singular present endings)
  • hi endings
• Middle voice endings
  • have their own set of endings separate from mi/hi

Example roots/verbs mentioned

• es: “to be” (mi-type)
• da: “to take” (hi-type)
• ar: “to stand” (used to illustrate middle voice)

2) Functions of the middle voice (not just “passive”)

Middle voice verbs can express several roles:

• Intransitive meanings (no direct object), e.g.:
  • ar “to stand”
  • ki “to lie”
  • kis “to happen”
• Passive-like meaning, e.g.:
  • suri(y)antati: “were stifled”
• Stative / change-of-state meanings, e.g.:
  • “being born,” “getting sick,” or otherwise indicating a state rather than a directed action

How Hittite conveys more than two tenses (auxiliaries, particles, constructions)

A) Using particles for conditional / modal meaning

• Particle: man
  • conveys potentiality (“could/would/might”)
  • can express:
    • scenarios that “could happen” under different conditions
    • counterfactuals (“would have done X if not for Y”)
    • wishes (similar to “I wish …”)
    • “if”-clauses (setup for possibility)

Examples/uses described

• conditional/counterfactual restoration scenario (“would have gone…”)
• “would have killed … if they hadn’t found out the plan”
• used twice in one sentence:
  • once for the if condition
  • once for the could outcome (e.g., “if you give me one of your sons, he could become my husband”)
• wishes:
  • “I wish that city were mine”

B) Periphrastic constructions for perfects (helper verbs + participles)

Hittite can form perfect and past perfect using:

• conjugated forms of “to have” + a participle

“To have” in Hittite

• har / hark (present vs. past conjugations)

Participles

• typically described as ending in -on or -ant

Perfect formation described

• Present perfect: present tense “have” + participle
  • Example: Nant waranti pahhuni piyanza harzi
    • “He has given it …”
• Past perfect: past tense “have” + participle
  • Example: Assiyanwan … harkun
    • “I had (appeased/… )”

Key point

• Despite being ~3,500 years old and distantly related to English, Hittite uses a very similar structure to English “have + past participle” for perfect meanings.

Derivational verb formation: building new meanings with suffixes

General method: derived verbs

• How it works
  • take a root (often noun/adjective/other verb)
  • add a derivational suffix (e.g., causative/iterative)
  • then conjugate like other verbs using:
    • the appropriate tense (present/past)
    • the appropriate person/number
• The derived verb consists of:
  • root + suffix + inflectional ending (present/past; person/number; etc.)

Causative suffixes

Causative suffix: -new

• forms verbs with causation (“make/cause X to do/be”)
• examples:
  • weh “to turn” → with -new becomes wahhnu “to make turn / to swing”
  • parkui “clean/pure” → parkunu “cleanse/purify” (“make clean”)
  • can yield broader/metaphorical meanings:
    • salli “big” → sallanu “make big” / “raise a child”
    • wahhnu can mean “alter” (metaphor)

Causative suffix: -ahk

• works on adjectives
• examples:
  • newa “new” → newahk “make new”
  • happina “rich” → happinahk “make rich”

Difference emphasized: -new vs -ays

• -ays turns adjectives into verbs meaning more like “become” (not necessarily causation)
• examples:
  • ekuna “cold” → ekunays “become cold”
  • taypu “small” → taypuways “become small”

Contrast example using the same root

• parkwesi (with -ays) = “become clean” → used to mean “proven innocent”
• parkwidu (with -new) = “make clean” → used figuratively to mean “exonerate”

Iterative suffix

• Iterative suffix: -sk
  • meaning: repeated action or extended/habitual duration
  • compared to Latin/Greek -sk / -sc (often with inchoative/inceptive uses)

Hittite uses of -sk / -skus

• habitual repetition (used for “customarily/used to do”)
• ongoing/extended duration

Example with combined morphology

• salanusked = causative via nu + iterative via -sk
  • meaning: “raise a child over an extended period”

Repeated births / repeated events

• hasketsi “gives birth”
• with -skus: repeated giving birth to a whole litter, sequentially

Connection back to PIE (Proto-Indo-European)

• Discovery of Hittite changed expectations:
  • prior view: PIE verbs would resemble Sanskrit/Latin/Greek patterns (highly inflected)
  • after Hittite: PIE is increasingly thought to have a system more like Hittite
• Speaker’s framing:
  • PIE likely used an inflectional system closer to Hittite’s (simpler core inflection, more meaning carried by auxiliaries/particles/suffixes) than the later highly inflected classical paradigms.
• The video avoids debating details of the split timing/location (“where and when and how this split happened”), but affirms:
  • PIE/Proto–Indo-Hittite likely had a verb system resembling Hittite more than Sanskrit/Latin/Greek.

Speakers / sources featured

Speakers

• Jack of all languages (video host/lecturer; narrator of the explanation)
• Bedřich Hrozný (Czech linguist; credited with deciphering Hittite in 1915)

Sources / references mentioned

• University of Texas at Austin — “Hittite online” (website source for example sentences)
• Classical Indo-European languages mentioned for comparison: Sanskrit, Latin, Greek
• Patreon/supporter names read aloud: George, Ashley, Bethany, Judy, John, Mike, Kooties, Ritwik, Lake, Elon, Dottie
• Spotify (platform mentioned for reviews/rating)