Abstract

This article investigates the possible grammaticalisation path followed by the commonly reconstructed Proto-Indo-European adverb *bhí, which developed into an inflectional ending on the one hand (in classical languages among others, e.g. Gr., Lat. -bus, Skt. -bhis), and into a preposition on the other hand (in Germanic languages, e.g. Eng. by, Ger. bei). The morpheme *-bhi has been interpreted as a derivational morpheme, which is attached to nominal bases to form adverbs, as well as a case ending pertaining to inflectional morphology. This study gives a brief overview of the uses of Gr., alongside with comparative material from other Indo-European languages. Having mentioned few problematic etymologies, the paper takes into account various hypotheses that have been advanced for the reconstruction of the morphological and semantic path of *bhí. Its position in the sentence, before the verb and after a nominal, may have led to the interpretation as a postposition, which then moved before the nominal. In the passage from adverb with local meaning (‘near’) to its employment in a nominal paradigm, a fundamental role was played by pronouns