Full Description
Studying the Indo-European languages means having a privileged viewpoint on diachronic language change, because of their relative wealth of documentation, which spans over more than three millennia with almost no interruption, and their cultural position that they have enjoyed in human history.The chapters in this volume investigate case-studies in several ancient Indo-European languages (Ancient Greek, Latin, Hittite, Luwian, Sanskrit, Avestan, Old Persian, Armenian, Albanian) through the lenses of contact, variation, and reconstruction, in an interdisciplinary and intradisciplinary way. This reveals at the same time the multiplicity and the unity of our discipline(s), both by showing what kind of results the adoption of modern theories on "old" material can yield, and by underlining the centrality and complexity of the text in any research related to ancient languages.
Contents
ForewordAlexandra Y. AikhenvaldAcknowledgementsList of Figures and TablesNotes on ContributorsIntroductionMichele Bianconi and Marta Capano1 Divine Witnesses in Greece and Anatolia: Iliad 3.276-280 between Contact, Variation, and ReconstructionMichele Bianconi2 Elamite and Persian Indefinites: A Comparative ViewJuan E. Briceno-Villalobos3 Phenomena of Spirantization and Language Contact in Greek Sicilian Inscriptions. The case of Marta Capano4 Egyptian Greek: A Contact VarietySonja Dahlgren5 Substrate MattersFranco Fanciullo6 Natural Language Use and Bilingual Interference: Verbal Complementation Patterns in Post-Classical GreekVictoria Fendel7 Where Does Dionysus Come From?Laura Massetti8 Alignment Change and Changing Alignments: Armenian Syntax and the First 'Death' of ParthianRobin Meyer9 Rewriting the Law: Diachronic Variation and Register in Greek and Hittite Legal LanguageKatharine Shields10 Lexical Variation in Younger Avestan: The Problem of the 'Ahuric' and 'Daevic' Vocabularies RevisitedElizabeth Tucker11 Greek 'Gathering' between Dialectology and Indo-European ReconstructionRoberto Batisti12 Here's to a Long Life! Echoes of Indo-European Semantics in AlbanianBrian JosephIndex
