Indo-European Linguistics

This article studies the semantic field of generic words for 'stars', 'constellations', and 'planets' in Early Irish. The discussed Old Irish items are: 1. the hapax ser, 2. rind, 3. the doubtful rét, 4. rétglu, 5. gét, and 6. airndrethach. The items are subjected to a close semantic scrutiny, in order to modify the lexicon definitions in cases where it is necessary; and their etymologies are discussed, which results in new or phonologically and morphologically more precise explanations for some of them. In appendix 1, a potentially Proto-Celtic poetic formula involving a word for 'star' is reconstructed. Appendix 2 is concerned with OIr. stíall*, a loan from Lat. stella 'star', which only occurs in the name of the feast of Epiphany.

This paper presents a systematic reassessment of STURTEVANT'S LAW (Sturtevant 1932), which governs the differing outcomes of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) voiced and voiceless obstruents in Hit-tite (Anatolian). I argue that STURTEVANT'S LAW was a conditioned pre-Hittite sound change whereby (i) contrastively voiceless word-medial obstruents regularly underwent gemination (cf. Melchert 1994), but gemination was blocked for stops in pre-stop position; and (ii) the inherited [±voice] contrast was then lost, replaced by the [±long] opposition observed in Hittite (cf. Blevins 2004). I provide empirical and typological support for this novel restriction, which is shown not only to account straightforwardly for data that is problematic under previous analyses, but also to be phonetically motivated, a natural consequence of the poorly cued durational contrast between voiceless and voiced stops in pre-stop environments. I develop an optimality-theoretic analysis of this gemination pattern in pre-Hittite, and discuss how this grammar gave rise to synchronic Hittite via "transphonologization" (Hyman 1976, 2013). Finally, it is argued that this analysis supports deriving the Hittite stop system from the PIE system as traditionally reconstructed (contra Kloekhorst 2016, Jäntti 2017).

This paper provides an overview of the agricultural lexicon of
Balto-Slavic and aims to include all words that can be
reconstructed for the Baltic and Slavic proto-languages. In our
analysis, we distinguish between the words that can be dated to
Proto-Balto-Slavic and those that entered Baltic and/or Slavic
independently at a later stage. The paper shows that Baltic and
Slavic do not share a large agricultural lexicon, which suggests
that the speakers of Balto-Slavic did not practice agriculture in a
much more extensive way than the Proto-Indo-European pastoral
nomads did. The transition from a pastoral to a more agriculturebased
society took place after the parting of Baltic and Slavic.

This part of our work has been released copyright free, provided that original credit is given. The second part of the ebook after the Tocharian section was written by Michael Schmidt and taken from his original writings. Since winter 2017 he has returned to Albania from Utrecht to retire. He has kindly let me re publish his work here to publish as a free e book. It's not possible to date a language using genetics or historical models. These historic models were sometimes biased towards written history, which isn't always accurate. We have searched maps to find consistency between certain types of archaeological sites and the words used to name them. We have found some consistency between Afro Asiatic words and different archaeological site types in Britain. There are other associations between different types of Celtic word and other archaeological sites, but we can't tell if the language used was actually Celtic, or a predecessor to Celtic which was predecessor to Celtic. The first Neolithic culture in England was the Windmill Hill culture, which wasn't connected to the earlier spread of Neolithic technology from Dingle in South West Ireland. The province of Munster provides an important key to understanding the spread of Celtic identity. There was Mesolithic settlement in Munster, and then early Neolithic finds were discovered on the Dingle Peninsula. It is believed that from here, the Neolithic technology went to Connaught, then to the Irish Sea and to Wales and the Isle of Man. This is consistent with the spread of Gaelic, the most archaic Gaelic dialects are spoken in Munster, alongside the most Ogham stones. The Isle of Man also has a lot of Ogham stones, so we can assume an early Irish influence. There are also Ogham stones in Wales, and evidence that West Wales and Anglesey were historically Irish, implying that the Goidelic languages had a lot to do with the founding of Celtic elements in West Britain. The spread of Bronze Age technology also went from the copper mines in Munster, to the gold mines elsewhere in Ireland, and to the copper and gold mines in Wales and parts of England. There is a very clear west to east movement of trade and technology, which is not the same cultural matrix as the east to west spread of the Neolithic via England. The Windmill Hill culture was concentrated in Essex and Norfolk, but this also spread to South West England, an example is Wor Barrow in Dorset. *Wor or *war is a root that can be connected to the Finnish word for mountain, vuori, and the Afro Asiatic word *war-which means to grow or increase. This word has symbolic connotations and seems connected to the Neolithic beliefs about the dead and the way that they nourished the land.

The current article investigates the tense usage in the speech conclusions with past reference in Homer ("so s/he said"). It starts by listing the different conclusions by verb and per tense, then discusses previous explanations and finally proceeds to the analysis. By analysing the examples, the article argues that the distinction is not metrically motivated, but explainable from an aspectual point of view: when the speaking had an influence on, caused a reaction from, and/or was met by a negative or positive response by the audience, the imperfect was used. When the speaking provided the background description for a new action, the imperfect was also used. The aorist was chosen, when the speaker immediately proceeded to something else after s/he finished speaking (i.e. when the subject of the speaking was the same as that of the verb form following the speech conclusion), or when the act of speaking was described as being in vain. The pluperfect appeared when the completion of the act of speaking was described. In earlier scholarship, the predominance of the imperfect (and especially with phe:mí) caused problems. We first address the earlier explanations (aorist, imperfect form with aoristic meaning or genuine imperfect) and then proceed to an analysis, including the exceptions. At the end, we address the question whether ê was an aorist or imperfect.

In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (lines 227–30 ), Demeter promises to protect the prince of Eleusis, Demophon, from three dangers, namely ἐπηλυσίη ‘witchcraft’, ὑλοτόμος ‘the one who/which cuts wood’, and ὑποτάμνον ‘that which cuts under’. By employing an interdisciplinary approach combining philology, linguistics, comparative mythology, and folktale studies, the paper argues for ὑλοτόμος and ὑποτάμνον as poetic terms for [AXE] or [METAL], as well as for a new reading of Demeter’s speech in HDem. 227–30 as a promise to make Demophon invulnerable.
The interpretation of ὑλοτόμος ‘the one who/which cuts wood’ as a compositional kenning for [AXE] or [METAL] is supported by phraseological parallels in Archaic Greek epic poetry (inter alia, Il. 23.114 ὑλοτόμους πελέκεας “wood cutting axes”) and in other IE poetic traditions (Vedic abhī́d […] paraśúr yáthā vánam “splitting them like an axe a tree”; Old Norse gýgr […] skógs “ogress of the wood”, i.e. [AXE]).
The analysis of ὑποτάμνον ‘that which cuts under’ as a poetic term for [AXE] or [METAL] finds support in Homeric phraseology (inter alia, Od. 23.204 […] ταμὼν ὕπο πυθμέν᾿ ἐλαίης “cutting under the trunk of the olive”) and in the lexicon of the Septuaginta (ὑποτομεύς ‘the one which cuts under’, translating Hebr. magezērah ‘axe’).
Demeter’s speech in HDem. 227–30 must thus be interpreted as a promise to protect Demophon from both enchantments (ἐπηλυσίη) and axes or metal weapons in general (ὑλοτόμος, ὑποτάμνον), i.e. invulnerable, as these are the two main causes of death for a Greek epic hero. This reading of the passage finds support in the ritual undertaken by Demeter in HDem. 236–39 with the aim of making Demophon immortal and in the goddess’ admission of her own intentions in HDem. 259–62.
The interpretation of HDem. 227–30 as a promise of invulnerability fits into a system of parallels between the Demophon episode, the Norse myth of Baldr’s death and the Vedic mythical narratives on the Sun’s abnormal birth and wounding. The features shared by these three traditions allow for the reconstruction of an inherited mythical theme in which, after concerns arise for the safety of a protagonist characterized by a non-ordinary (late or premature) birth and an (actual and/or onomastic) association with [LIGHT], an unsuccessful attempt is made to ensure his well-being, often by making him invulnerable to anything that may hurt him and in connection with an oath.
The correspondences between the Demophon episode and its IE counterparts also match features of the folktales of the type ATU 410 “Sleeping Beauty” (e.g. Perrault’s “La Belle au bois dormant”), in which, inter alia, the protagonist is characterized by a non-ordinary (late) birth, followed by concerns for her safety (her doom being prophesized as in Baldr’s myth) and by a failed attempt to ensure her well-being by protecting her from anything that may hurt her, often in association with a public decree (matching the oath attested in Demophon and Baldr’s  narratives). Finally, the princess conceives with her saviour two children who have an onomastic connection with [LIGHT], matching the (actual and/or onomastic) association with [LIGHT] of the protagonists of the IE myths.

This article is part of an ongoing investigation into the meaning, origin and use of the augment in Early Greek prose and poetry and discusses the use and absence of the augment in the forms of the simplex ἔειπον / εἶπον in early epic Greek (Homer, Hesiod and the Homeric Hymns). I first explain why this verb was chosen and then proceed to determining the corpus. I start by listing the criteria to determine which forms are metrically guaranteed; when a form is not secured by the metre, I use the "Barrett-Taida" method, which analyses metrically insecure forms by comparing them to the metrically secure forms of the same paradigm and to the attestations and positions in the verse. The corpus that is thus established is then analysed by using previous scholarship on syntactic constraints (Drewitt-Beck's clitic rule and Kiparsky's "conjunction reduction" rule) and on the semantics (Koch-Basset's distinction of narrative versus speech and Platt-Bakker-Mumm's theory of recent past versus Hoffmann's remote and timeless past); special attention is also paid to the exceptions. At the end, I investigate if the augment use in epic Greek can be explained as a visual evidential marker.

The phonetical and phonological interpretation of Hittite is exceptionally complicated. This is due to the data being accessible only through a writing system symbolizing the spoken chain by signs, which does not prejudge the sound form of the units represented, nor the relations of linearity they maintain with each other.
This book is the first comprehensive study of Hittite phonology conducted from a descriptive perspective and the first to use the results of experimental phonetics and phonological typology. In spite of problems probably destined to remain unsolved, this study shows that it is possible to rationally analyze a description of the phonological structure of words.

par Émilia Ndiaye.
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Le présent ouvrage a pour objectif d’initier les étudiants à la grammaire comparée en prenant le cas du latin et du grec. Il présente un bref historique de la méthode comparative concernant les langues indo-européennes, de son fonctionnement et des résultats auxquels on aboutit à propos de l’indo-européen. Le corps du manuel consiste en une présentation de l’évolution de l’indo-européen vers le latin et vers le grec, avec des exercices : en partant des étymons indo-européens (théorie de la racine d’Émile Benveniste) on analyse les transformations dans les domaines de la phonétique et de la formation des mots (suffixation, préfixation).

Pour permettre aux étudiants de disposer des outils nécessaires, sont fournis des éléments bibliographiques qui permettent d’approfondir le travail sur les points abordés dans l’ouvrage, les corrigés des exercices proposés ainsi que des tableaux récapitulatifs de phonétique (indo-européenne, latine, grecque), deux lexiques des principaux étymons indo-européens, la liste des principaux suffixes et celle des préfixes.

Public cible
L'ouvrage s'adresse à tout public qui s'intéresse à l'histoire des langues indo-européennes, dans une perspective comparatiste, avec l'exemple du latin et du grec ; il convient particulièrement à un public universitaire, étudiants qui travaillent sur la linguistique latine ou grecque et sur l'histoire des langues, en Lettres ou en Sciences du langage. Il sera également fort utile pour la préparation des concours de l'Agrégation de Grammaire, Lettres classiques ou Lettres modernes.

Détails et table des matières sur http://www.safran.be/proddetail.php?prod=LCA14

Semenenko A.A. Endemic Cattle of South Asia in Rigveda // Актуальные проблемы аграрной науки, производства и образования: материалы V международной научно-практической конференции молодых ученых и специалистов (на иностранных языках) (Россия, Воронеж, апрель 2019г.). — Воронеж: ФГБОУ ВО Воронежский ГАУ, 2019. — С. 295–299.