South Picene

South Picene is the pre-Roman language spoken in the Adriatic sector of central Italy. This book presents a description of what we know about the structure of this language. South Picene is (together with Umbrian, Oscan, Latin, and Faliscan) one of the few members of the Italic branch of the Indo-European family and is also one of the European languages with the oldest existing texts (550 BCE). Besides a grammatical outline of the language, the book contains the linguistic (and often stylistic) analysis of all the 21 inscriptions that compose the South Picene epigraphic corpus and a word list. South Picene will be of interest to students and scholars of Indo-European languages, Italic languages, and in general, ancient languages of the Italian peninsula.

This book presents an exhaustive treatment of a long-standing problem of Proto-Indo-European and Italic philology: the development of the Proto-Indo-European voiced aspirates in the ancient languages of Italy. In so doing it tackles a central issue of historical linguistics: the plausibility of explanations for sound change. The author argues that the problem can be resolved by combining a traditional philological investigation with experimental phonetics. Philological methods enable the presentation of the first integrated account of the evidence for the Italic languages, with detailed discussion of languages other than Latin. Theory and methods from experimental phonetics are then adopted to offer a new explanation for how the sound change might have taken place. At the same time, phonetic methods also confirm the traditional reconstruction of voiced aspirates for Proto-Indo-European. Thus the book offers a case-study of the successful application of synchronic theory and method to a problem of diachrony.

South Picene is the pre-Roman language spoken in the Adriatic sector of central Italy. This book presents a description of what we know about the structure of this language. South Picene is (together with Umbrian, Oscan, Latin, and Faliscan) one of the few members of the Italic branch of the Indo-European family and is also one of the European languages with the oldest existing texts (550 BCE). Besides a grammatical outline of the language, the book contains the linguistic (and often stylistic) analysis of all the 21 inscriptions that compose the South Picene epigraphic corpus and a word list. South Picene will be of interest to students and scholars of Indo-European languages, Italic languages, and in general, ancient languages of the Italian peninsula.

TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS is a series of books that open new perspectives in our understanding of language. The series publishes state-of-the-art work on core areas of linguistics across theoretical frameworks, as well as studies that provide new insights by approaching language from an interdisciplinary perspective. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS considers itself a forum for cutting-edge research based on solid empirical data on language in its various manifestations, including sign languages. It regards linguistic variation in its synchronic and diachronic dimensions as well as in its social contexts as important sources of insight for a better understanding of the design of linguistic systems and the ecology and evolution of language. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS publishes monographs and outstanding dissertations as well as edited volumes, which provide the opportunity to address controversial topics from different empirical and theoretical viewpoints. High quality standards are ensured through anonymous reviewing.

This book describes the semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic features of Sabellian demonstratives. It contains new hypotheses on the epigraphic genres in Republican Italy and a reconstruction of these grammatical items’ Italic origins based on typological principles.

This text makes use of contemporary work in linguistics to provide up-to-date commentary on the development of Latin, from its prehistoric origins in the Indo-European language family, through the earliest texts, to the creation of the Classical Language of Cicero and Vergil, and examines the impact of the spread of spoken Latin through the Roman Empire. The first book in English in more than 50 years to provide comprehensive coverage of the history of the Latin language Gives a full account of the transformation of the language in the context of the rise and fall of Ancient Rome Presents up-to-date commentary on the key linguistic issues Makes use of carefully selected texts, many of which have only recently come to light Includes maps and glossary as well as fully translated and annotated sample texts that illustrate the different stages of the language Accessible to readers without a formal knowledge of Latin or linguistics

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.

In Language and Meter, Dieter Gunkel and Olav Hackstein unite fifteen linguistic studies on a variety of poetic traditions, including the Homeric epics, the hieratic hymns of the Ṛgveda, the Gathas of the Avesta, early Latin and the Sabellic compositions, Germanic alliterative verse, Insular Celtic court poetry, and Tocharian metrical texts. The studies treat a broad range of topics, including the prehistory of the hexameter, the nature of Homeric formulae, the structure of Vedic verse, rhythm in the Gathas, and the relationship between Germanic and Celtic poetic traditions. The volume contributes to our understanding of the relationship between language and poetic form, and how they change over time.