The Old Irish Evidence for the Reconstruction of the Indo-European Acrostatic Presents
Natalia O’Shea
Moscow State University
Abstract
The present article reveals a small part of our ongoing work, which aims at a thorough analysis of the evolution of IE verbal morphological categories and formal types of verbal stems in Celtic. We have analysed a small number of Old Irish verbs which show traces of acrostatic Present formations. However limited the Celtic evidence may be, the importance of it should be under no circumstances downplayed. This evidence from the Western dialects of the Indo-European periphery provides a strong point for the argument that acrostatic Presents existed at least at a later stage of the Indo-European proto-language.