Le categorie dell'Aspetto e dell'Azione nel sistema verbale del gotico: il caso del GA-

The aim of the present study is to analyse the role played by the prefix ga- in the verbal morphology of the Gothic language. The question has been approached from the traditional perspective provided by Indo-European Studies which aims at the reconstruction of proto-languages: grammatical categories are analysed in their diachronic evolution by means of a comparative method drawing on evidence from attested languages and possible affinities and innovations are evaluated. For the purpose of this study, only the attested languages that pertain more closely to the analysed corpus have been taken into consideration, namely Gothic, Greek and, where deemed necessary, Latin. The analysis has also been supported by a philological approach to the texts; this has enabled cultural facets to be highlighted as well as aspects of the manuscript tradition belonging to the texts themselves, neither of which can be accounted for on the basis of a merely linguistic approach. The analysis of the individual occurrences of the prefix is preceded by critical reflection on the notions of Aspekt and Aktionsart in light of the deepseated ambiguity aroused by these two paradigmatical categories. For this reason, a survey of the characteristics of the domains of Aspekt and Aktionsart has been carried out, where possible, in order to demarcate these two linguistic dimensions and also in relation to the category of tense. Previous studies on the categories of Aspekt and Aktionsart in Gothic (see Streitberg, 1891; Maslov, 1959; Marache, 1960) have for the most part traced the function of the prefix ga- back to the expression of the perfective value or have considered it as a mere relict devoid of its initial aspectual meaning (see Makovskij, 1959; Pollak, 1971). In contrast to the hypotheses described above, the present discussion of the different occurrences of the prefix ga- demonstrates that this morphological element still plays a functional role in Wulfila’s language. Its function does not appear to be connected with the modification of aspectual features, rather it pertains to the lexical semantics of the verb and should therefore be assigned to the domain of Aktionsart.