Vedic Sanskrit compounding as a window into tough-movement

Abstract

In the present study, English tough-constructions are compared with their analog in Vedic Sanskrit, i.e., the earliest dialectal variety (dating back to ca. 1200- 500 BC) of Sanskrit, an old Indo-Aryan language spoken in the Indian subcontinent for over three millennia. It is found out that Vedic Sanskrit toughconstructions are codified via a specific type of compound dubbed as ‘bahuvrīhi’. Exploiting recent work on Sanskrit bahuvrīhis, according to which their derivation involves A-movement (more precisely, the movement of an overt phrase from within the bahuvrīhi to a bahuvrīhi-external position where they are case-marked), the present study extends this derivation to the bahuvrīhis that codify tough-constructions in Vedic Sanskrit. In this way, the conclusion is reached that tough-movement can be reduced to an instance of A-movement in Vedic Sanskrit, thereby contrasting with tough-movement in English, which has instead been argued to be a variety of A-bar movement (more precisely, the movement of a silent operator to the left-periphery of the infinitive contained in English tough-constructions).