<論文>トカラ語B au-n-, A o-n- の用例調査と意味に関する考察

Abstract

The verbs Tocharian B au-n-, A o-n- show an interesting bifurcation in meaning according to voice. Middle forms typically appear with an infinitive and mean ‘begin (to do something)’ while active forms appear without an infinitive and mean --according to previous scholarship-- hit, strike, wound, attack, etc.’. In this paper, I conduct a comprehensive survey of the occurrences of this root while paying careful attention to the contexts in which they are used and conclude that the active forms in fact mean ‘penetrate, pierce’ with a metaphorical extension to ‘penetrate (intellectually)’ in some passages. An important piece of evidence for positing this meaning is the occurrence of aunu (past participle of B au-n-) as a gloss for Skt. pratividdha- ‘penetrated (intellectually)’ at B 542 b7. Previous approaches attempt to connect B au-n-, A o-n- with other Indo-European roots with a range of meanings such as ‘seize, grasp, reach, attain, touch, strike’ and generally try to derive the meaning of the Tocharian middle forms from the active forms. More recently, Hackstein［2020］posits PIE *h₂eṷh₁- ‘run/rush towards (in order to help or to attack)’ as underlying B au-n-, A o-n- and argues that the Tocharian forms synchronically exhibit the semantics of a motion verb. I argue that these solutions are unlikely since they have as their starting point an inaccurate or overly vague notion of the meaning of the active forms. Finally, for the semantic development from ‘penetrate, pierce’ to ‘begin’, I point out that the action of penetrating can be conceived of as the action of entering or opening up, providing a natural link for a development to ‘begin’. Germanic forms such as OHG in-ginnan, in which a verb meaning ‘cut open, open up’ comes to be used in the sense of ‘begin’ provide a parallel for the proposed semantic development.