Welcome to the homepage of TRIA - Transitivity in Indo-Aryan

The aim of the project is a systematic description and analysis of the valence-changing categories (causative, passive, intransitive) in Indo-Aryan. The project will combine quantitative, corpus based research with qualitative research on language typology. The final result of the project is the production of a database of Old Indo-Aryan verb forms, which will provide information about their syntactic properties, and incorporate date about their frequency. A part of the database will contain diachronic information about select verb roots, and their development into Middle and New Indo-Aryan.

Main tasks:

• Markup template for valency-changing categories.
• Quantitative analysis of type and token frequency of verbs
• Qualitative analysis of Early OIA verb formations and complete description of valency-changing categories
• Diachronic analysis of selected Indo-Aryan verbs from Atharvaveda and from selected Middle and Late Vedic texts
• Diachronic analysis of valency-changing categories from Early to Late OIA, and development into MIA and NIA.

This will make possible to produce

(i) a description of the diachronic development and balance of the different intransitivity markers in Indo-Aryan;

(ii) a systematic analysis of causatives and transitivity markers in Vedic and their reflexes in Middle and New Indo-Aryan;

(iii) a description of the valence-changing function of the middle voice and its decline in Vedic;

(iv) a systematic analysis of labile forms (i.e. forms that can be used both transitively and intransitively) in Vedic;

(v) an analysis of the system of valence-changing categories in their relationships.

The complete database will be released under a creative common license at the end of the project.

A detailed analysis of the valence-changing categories in Indo-Aryan will serve as a basis for the typological study of these categories in a new perspective, particularly, for uncovering the stability of some categories and the expansion of some others, and thereby for determining what is constant in dynamic processes.

The innovative and challenging character of the research is determined by its threefold perspective: (i) it will be a first systematic description of the valence-changing categories in Indo-Aryan in their synchronic and diachronic aspects; (ii) together with similar works on other ancient Indo-European languages, it will offer a basis for the reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European syntax; (iii) evidence from Indo-Aryan offers a possibility to study different features and changes within a group of related categories (passive, causative,etc.), being of particular relevance for a typological diachronic study of these categories. The database that will result from the research will offer the sceintific community a unique opportunity for further progress.