Structural Types of the IE Medio-Passive Endings: R and T Semes

In this paper∗ the writers will attempt to depict in their mutual relations the several types of verb-forms which evolve into the so-called medio-passive, deponent, etc. categories in the historical IE languages as these types seem to have existed in late IE times; and to indicate subsequent developments (e.g., growth of some types, decay of others) that appear to have occurred in the prehistory of the continuant languages. It is our purpose to confine ourselves more or less to descriptive morphology, avoiding, on the one hand, inquiry into the ultimate origin (non-finite verbal, substantival, etc.) of the forms here discussed; and, on the other, as far as possible, entanglement with semantic and syntactic dogma of every sort.