S Stem Nouns And Adjectives In Greek And Proto Indo European

Torsten Meissner examines a group of nouns and adjectives, all formed with the same suffix, and explains their morphology and semantics, from prehistoric times throughout the Classical period of Greece, furthering our understanding of the Greek language.

Literaturverz. S. [187] - 200.

This volume presents new work exploring how the study of historical linguistics can advance our understanding of Greek and Latin and, conversely, how the classical languages can help us to reconstruct Proto-Indo-European and the culture of its speakers. Classical and Indo-European linguistics have been particularly exciting areas of research in recent years, and this book is intended to provide insight into some of the main areas of current debate. It stems from an international conference held in Cambridge in 2005 and includes contributions from keynote speakers Andreas Willi and Joshua Katz. The book covers a wide range of topics: phonology (the accentuation of Greek monosyllables, the development of laryngeals in Greek, and typological discussion of the glottalic theory); morphology (the prehistory of the past-tense augment, the iteratives and causatives of the Latin second conjugation, the origin of the Latin prefix co(m)- , Indo-European root nouns and s-stem neuters, Greek and Latin reflexive pronouns, the Greek comparative suffix); the etymologies of etymos, Achilles, adulare, and a Macedonian gloss; the significance of the Greek particle tar; and comparisons of Sanskrit matrimonial names and poetic terminology with their Greek counterparts. Greek and Latin from an Indo-European Perspective demonstrates the continuing relevance of linguistics for the study of ancient languages and literature, and will be of interest to classicists, Indo-European linguists, and historical linguists generally

In The Reflexes of the Proto-Indo-European Laryngeals in Celtic, Nicholas Zair for the first time collects and assesses all the words from the Celtic languages which contained a laryngeal, and identifies the regular results of the laryngeals in each phonetic environment. This allows him to formulate previously unrecognised sound changes affecting Proto-Celtic, and assess the competing explanations for other developments. This work has far-reaching consequences for the understanding of the historical phonology and morphology of the Celtic languages, and for etymological work involving the Celtic language, along with implications for Indo-European sound laws and the Indo-European syllable. A major conclusion is that the laryngeals cannot be used to argue for an Italo-Celtic language family.

This volume discusses the multidimensional aspects of the unique, and so far unprecedented for Macedonia, 191 sherds from Methone in Pieria, dated to ca 700 BCE, which bear inscriptions, graffiti, and (trade)marks inscribed, incised, scratched and rarely painted. The 191 vessels were unearthed during excavations in ancient Methone in Pieria, the oldest colony of Greeks from Eretria in the north according to tradition. The Methone find is unique for two reasons. First, most of the pottery dates between 730 and 700 BCE, a period from which very few examples of Greek writing survives. And second, inscribed ceramics, scratched or painted, are extremely rare in Macedonia. This new evidence of inscribed pottery from Methone is invaluable for classical studies, and the papers of this volume contribute notably to current discussions about: the Greeks and the Greek language in Macedonia; the Greek colonization; the pottery trade and the early Greek transport amphoras; trade, the symposium, and other contexts for the development of writing; the ‘alphabets’ of Methone and the introduction of the alphabet in Greece; the dialect(s) of Methone in relation to the Greek dialects; early Greek writing, literacy, and literary beginnings.

Recent developments in aDNA has reshaped our understanding of later European prehistory, and at the same time also opened up for more fruitful collaborations between archaeologists and historical linguists. Two revolutionary genetic studies, published independently in Nature, 2015, showed that prehistoric Europe underwent two successive waves of migration, one from Anatolia consistent with the introduction of agriculture, and a later influx from the Pontic-Caspian steppes which without any reasonable doubt pinpoints the archaeological Yamnaya complex as the cradle of (Core-)Indo-European languages. Now, for the first time, when the preliminaries are clear, it is possible for the fields of genetics, archaeology and historical linguistics to cooperate in a constructive fashion to refine our knowledge of the Indo-European homeland, migrations, society and language. For the historical-comparative linguists, this opens up a wealth of exciting perspectives and new working fields in the intersections between linguistics and neighbouring disciplines, for the archaeologists and geneticists, on the other hand, the linguistic contributions help to endow the material findings with a voice from the past. The present selection of papers illustrate the importance of an open interdisciplinary discussion which will gradually help us in our quest of Tracing the Indo-Europeans.

This book presents the most comprehensive coverage of the field of Indo-European Linguistics in a century, focusing on the entire Indo-European family and treating each major branch and most minor languages. The collaborative work of 120 scholars from 22 countries, Handbook of Comparative and Historical Indo-European Linguistics combines the exhaustive coverage of an encyclopedia with the in-depth treatment of individual monographic studies.

This contribution in this volume discuss a large variety of issues from the realm of Indo-European phonology in its broadest definition, stretching from minute phonetic to more abstract levels of phonemics and morphophonemics and centering upon all varieties of Indo-European, including the protolanguage and its recent pre-stages and, in effect, all of its post-stages till this day.