Premium
THE TRIPLE SYSTEM OF DEIXIS IN SOGDIAN
Author(s) -
SIMSWILLIAMS NICHOLAS
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
transactions of the philological society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.333
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1467-968X
pISSN - 0079-1636
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-968x.1994.tb00427.x
Subject(s) - deixis , demonstrative , linguistics , history , ancient history , philosophy , theology
This paper demonstrates the existence in Sogdian, a Middle Iranian language belonging to the Eastern Iranian sub‐group, of ‘second person’ demonstratives based on the stems š ‐and t ‐, sometimes represented by the Aramaic ideograms ' LH and ' LK . It is argued that Sogdian š ‐and t‐ , like the Khotanese demonstratives based on the suppletive stems sa ‐and tta ‐, derive from Old Iranian aiša ‐and ta ‐, which were combined into a suppletive system by contamination of aiša ‐/ aita ‐‘this’ and the neutral demonstrative ha ‐/ ta ‐. The triple system of deixis attested by Sogdian y ‐/ m ‐‘hic’, š‐/t‐ ‘iste’, and x‐/w‐ ‘ille’ survives in some modern East Iranian languages, which employ stems derived from Old Iranian ima‐, aita ‐, and awa ‐.