抄録
This paper has attempted to elucidate the origin of the thematic conjugation in Indo-European. It has been shown that the thematic conjugation originated from the present stem, not from the aorist stem. This observation is supported by the paucity of root thematic aorists safely reconstructed for the parent language and the absence of thematic verbs in the past tense in Gothic. What is unique in the present stem and not found in the aorist stem is two suffixes exclusively used to form present stems, i.e. *-i̯e/o- and *-sk̑e/o-.
We have examined Hittite and other Anatolian languages which play a major role in discussions of the thematic conjugations. The Anatolian languages have virtually no attestation of simple thematic verbs in *-e/o-, but thematic verbs with the suffixes *-i̯e/o- and *-sk̑e/o- are abundantly attested. As a result of our systematic survey, it has turned out that there is no compelling evidence for reconstructing the thematic vowel *-o- in the active paradigm for Proto-Anatolian. The persistent e-vocalism is a feature inherited from Proto-Indo-European.
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