Old Avestan Syntax and Stylistics: With an Edition of the Texts

196 Pages·2011·1.366 MB·English

by  Martin L. West

Martin L. West
Old Avestan Syntax and Stylistics
Abhandlungen
der Akademie der Wissenschaften
zu Göttingen
Neue Folge, Band 13
De Gruyter
Martin L. West
Old Avestan Syntax and Stylistics
With an edition of the texts
De Gruyter
Vorgelegt von Martin West in der Sitzung vom 29. April 2011
ISBN 978-3-11-025308-5
e-ISBN 978-3-11-025309-2
ISSN 0930-4304
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
West, Martin L.
Old Avestan Syntax and Stylistics / Martin L. West.
p. cm. -- (Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften
zu Göttingen(cid:30) n. (cid:41)., Bd. 13(cid:12)
ISBN 978-3-11-025308-5
1. Avestan language--Syntax. I. Title.
PK6103.W47 2011
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Preface
There is no full and comprehensive modern study of Avestan syntax. The de-
scription in C. de Harlez’s Manuel de la langue de l’Avesta (2nd ed., Paris 1882),
112–35, was no more than a rough sketch, and the examples given are almost
all from Younger Avestan. Spiegel (1882) and Reichelt (1909) gave more use-
ful accounts, but they again did not distinguish systematically between Old and
Younger Avestan, and so far as the Gāthās are concerned they were hampered
by the fact that comprehension of the texts was more limited in their time than
it is now—not that all the obscurities have now been overcome, of course, but
morphological analysis has made great advances and much is better understood.
A. V. Williams Jackson announced in the preface to his Avesta Grammar (1891)
that ‘the second volume (Part II), a sketch of the Syntax, with a chapter also
on Metre, is already half in print, and is shortly to appear’, but it never did.
Berthold Delbrück cited Avestan sporadically in the three volumes of his great
Vergleichende Syntax der indogermanischen Sprachen (1893–1900), but he was not
able to draw on any ample collections of material as he could for Vedic, and he
felt that the basic work was still to be done. Christian Bartholomae did not
include a chapter on syntax in his account of Avestan and Old Persian in the
Grundriß der Iranischen Philologie I. 1 (Strassburg 1895–1901), 152–248. The
slight work by Maria Wilkins Smith, Studies in the Syntax of the Gathas of Zara-
thushtra (1929), disappoints expectations aroused by its title. In the past fifty
years much important work has been done on Avestan phonology and mor-
phology, but comparatively little on syntax. R. S. P. Beekes has nothing to say
of it in his Grammar of Gatha-Avestan (1988). Jean Kellens and Éric Pirart offer
extensive compilations of material on certain particular topics in the second
volume of Les textes vieil-avestiques, but its value is limited by their idiosyncratic
interpretations of many passages. The syntax chapter in the Introducción al Aves-
tico by Javier Martínez and Michiel de Vaan (Madrid 2000) is too brief to be
useful to any but beginners. Recently P. O. Skjærvø (2009) has published a
150-page survey of the Old Iranian languages (Old and Young Avestan, Old
Persian) of which a little over half is devoted to syntax and stylistics: it is good
as far as it goes, but only one or two Old Avestan examples are given under
each heading.
Old Avestan lends itself to a separate study. The text corpus is clearly deli-
mited, and it is small enough to allow comprehensive treatment, yet large
enough to provide adequate documentation of most phenomena. The fact that
it comes from a single region and a narrow timespan (probably not more than
a single generation), with perhaps only three authors represented, favours
sharpness of focus. The fact that it contains only composition of a stylized cha-
vi Preface
racter is a limitation; on the other hand, there is both verse and prose, giving
us two different varieties of stylization.
The present monograph is a by-product of my recent translation of the
Old Avestan texts (The Hymns of Zoroaster, London 2010). It aims at a tho-
rough and systematic treatment of syntax, word order, and stylistic features in
these texts. It is a strictly synchronic account, taking no notice of Younger
Avestan. I am well aware that most of what I describe is paralleled in and could
be amply illustrated from Vedic, but I abstain almost entirely from making the
comparisons. I am not concerned to reconstruct proto-Indo-Iranian or proto-
Indo-European syntax, though I expect my work will be of some interest to
those who are.
All references to texts are to the Yasna; those from the Yasna HaptaMhAiti
are distinguished by the abbreviation YH. I provide translations of all passages
quoted except in a very few places where it is unnecessary for my purpose.
The translations are based on my own understanding of the texts: some will
disagree with them in some cases, but I expect not to the extent of discrediting
the principles being proposed and illustrated. For convenience of reference I
have attached as an appendix an edition of the texts, punctuated and where
necessary emended as I see fit, with a critical apparatus.
I wish to express my great gratitude to Dr Almut Hintze (London) and Dr
Philomen Probert (Oxford) for reading the manuscript and providing valuable
criticism and guidance; it has benefited from their comments in many places. I
am likewise grateful to the Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen for
accepting the work for publication in its series of Abhandlungen.
M. L. West
January 2011
Contents
Preface ......................................................................................................... v
Abbreviations ................................................................................................... xi
I. The Structure of Discourse ...................................................................... 1
Sentence and Clause in Old Avestan ....................................................... 2
Verbal and Nominal Predication ............................................................. 3
Interrogative sentences .............................................................................. 4
Negation .................................................................................................... 5
II. Morphosyntax ............................................................................................ 9
Concord ..................................................................................................... 9
Apposition .................................................................................................. 10
Nouns and Adjectives ............................................................................... 11
Abstracta .............................................................................................. 12
Verbal Nouns (nomina agentis, actionis) .......................................... 13
Nominal Composition as Syntax ...................................................... 14
Degrees of Comparison ...................................................................... 15
Gender ................................................................................................. 16
Number ............................................................................................... 17
Singular ......................................................................................... 17
Dual ............................................................................................... 17
Plural ............................................................................................. 18
The Cases ............................................................................................ 18
Nominative ................................................................................... 19
Accusative ..................................................................................... 20
Instrumental .................................................................................. 24
Dative ............................................................................................ 29
Ablative ......................................................................................... 33
Genitive ........................................................................................ 36
Locative ......................................................................................... 40
Vocative ........................................................................................ 43
Pronouns .................................................................................................... 44
Personal pronouns and adjectives ...................................................... 44
viii Contents
Demonstrative pronouns .................................................................... 46
Demonstrative adverbs of manner, time, and place .................. 49
Relative pronouns .............................................................................. 50
Relative adverbs/conjunctions ................................................... 50
Interrogative pronouns ....................................................................... 51
Interrogative adverbs ................................................................... 52
Indefinite pronouns ............................................................................ 52
Verbs ......................................................................................................... 53
Person and Number ........................................................................... 53
Voice .................................................................................................... 54
Aspect .................................................................................................. 55
The present: aorist opposition .................................................... 56
The perfect ................................................................................... 58
Tense and Modality ............................................................................ 59
Present time .................................................................................. 59
Future time ................................................................................... 61
Past time ........................................................................................ 63
Mythical time ............................................................................... 64
Potentiality .................................................................................... 65
Prayers, wishes, aspirations .......................................................... 66
Requests, injunctions, prohibitions ............................................ 67
Infinitives ............................................................................................. 68
Participles and Verbal Adjectives ....................................................... 72
Verbal adjectives in -ta- ............................................................... 75
Gerundives in -iia- ....................................................................... 75
Verbal Modifiers (Preverbs) ............................................................... 76
Dependent Clauses .................................................................................... 77
Relative clauses ................................................................................... 77
Restrictive (defining) ................................................................... 77
Appositive (non-defining) ........................................................... 79
Features common to both restrictive and appositive clauses .... 80
The relative pronoun as quasi-article ......................................... 82
Temporal clauses ................................................................................. 83
Causal clauses ...................................................................................... 85
Comparative clauses ........................................................................... 86
Final and consecutive clauses ............................................................. 86
Conditional clauses ............................................................................. 87
Object clauses ...................................................................................... 88
Indirect statements and questions ...................................................... 89
Recapitulation: Uses of the Moods ......................................................... 90
Indicative and injunctive .................................................................... 90
Subjunctive .......................................................................................... 91
Optative ............................................................................................... 91
Imperative ........................................................................................... 92
Contents ix
Quotation of Direct Speech ..................................................................... 92
Particles ...................................................................................................... 93
Sentence particles ................................................................................ 94
Relational particles ............................................................................. 97
Focusing particles ................................................................................ 99
III. Word Order ............................................................................................... 105
The Placing of Emphatic Elements ......................................................... 106
Initial position ..................................................................................... 106
Final position ....................................................................................... 108
Distribution of emphasis by distraction ............................................ 108
The Placing of Unemphatic Elements .................................................... 110
Enclitics ............................................................................................... 110
Unemphatic elements in initial position ........................................... 111
Commatization .......................................................................................... 112
Order of Words within Cola ................................................................... 113
The contextual force field .................................................................. 113
Relative bulk ....................................................................................... 115
Subject, verb, object ........................................................................... 116
Further remarks on verb placement .................................................. 117
Subject and predicate in nominal sentences ..................................... 120
Secondary (predicative) accusative .................................................... 120
Datives ................................................................................................. 120
Attributive adjective ........................................................................... 121
Dependent genitive ............................................................................ 123
Other adnominals ............................................................................... 123
Vocatives ............................................................................................. 124
Extension .................................................................................................... 126
Interlacing .................................................................................................. 128
IV. Stylistics ...................................................................................................... 131
Economy of Expression ............................................................................ 132
Pleonasm .................................................................................................... 134
Understatement (Litotes) .......................................................................... 134
Rhetorical Questions ................................................................................ 135
Parenthesis .................................................................................................. 135
Figures ........................................................................................................ 137
Conjunction of contrary terms .......................................................... 137
Conjunction of related terms ............................................................. 138
Anaphora ............................................................................................. 139
Augmented triads ................................................................................ 142
x Contents
Appendix The Old Avestan Texts ................................................................. 143
A. The Verse Texts ................................................................................... 143
B. The Yasna HaptaMhāiti ......................................................................... 172
Bibliography ..................................................................................................... 177
Indexes ......................................................................................................... 179
I. Avestan words ........................................................................................ 179
II. Passages .................................................................................................. 180
III. Topics .................................................................................................. 181