Comparison and Gradation in Indo-European


Book Description

The ability to compare is fundamental to human cognition. Expressing various types of comparison is thus essential to any language. The present volume presents detailed grammatical descriptions of how comparison and gradation are expressed in ancient Indo-European languages. The detailed chapters devoted to the individual languages go far beyond standard handbook knowledge. Each chapter is structured the same way to facilitate cross-reference and (typological) comparison. The data are presented in a top-down fashion and in a format easily accessible to the linguistic community. The topics covered are similatives, equatives, comparatives, superlatives, elatives, and excessives. Each type of comparison is illustrated with glossed examples of all its attested grammatical realizations. The book is an indispensable tool for typologists, historical linguists, and students of the syntax and morphosyntax of comparison.




Comparison and Gradation in Indo-European


Book Description

MHIET is a handbook series of synchronic grammatical descriptions intended as up-to-date reference guides easily accessible both for typologists and Indo-European scholars. The handbooks will focus on well defined linguistic concepts relevant to current research, e.g. gradation, reflexivity, or converbs. Each volume shall be devoted to one concept:, giving exhaustive synchronic descriptions covering all branches of the Indo-European family. The contributions to the volumes tackle one branch or subbranch of Indo-European and will be written by one or more leading experts. The descriptions are based on a questionnaire provided by the editorial team, thus ensuring consistent high quality and allowing for comparability and easy cross-reference.




Handbook of Comparative and Historical Indo-European Linguistics


Book Description

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.




Greek – Latin – Slavic


Book Description

The volume is intended for classical philologists and a broad range of scholars working in the fields of theoretical, historical, and comparative linguistics with Ancient Greek, Latin, or Slavic languages as the primary evidence in their research. The contributions address topics ranging from issues of grammatography in a diachronic perspective to historical and comparative linguistics. They encompass both monothematic case studies and comprehensive analyses that capture a linguistic phenomenon in its entirety as well as within a broader context.




The Tocharian Subjunctive


Book Description

As one of the most central categories of the Tocharian verb, the subjunctive is of utmost importance for the reconstruction of the verbal system, the most rewarding domain of Tocharian historical grammar. Michaël Peyrot provides a thorough analysis of the formation of the subjunctive in both Tocharian languages, and establishes its meaning on the basis of a systematic investigation of a wealth of published and unpublished texts. A careful reconstruction of the Proto-Tocharian stage provides a solid base for the comparison with Indo-European and the derivation of the Tocharian subjunctive from the proto-language. With its focus on the wide variety of intricate morphological patterns, The Tocharian Subjunctive is at the same time a study of the whole Tocharian verbal system.




The Study of Indo-European Vocalism in the 19th century


Book Description

In the 19th century research on the Indo-European languages was to a large degree coterminus with the development of linguistics itself. The most notable accomplishments, as related in every history of linguistics, took place in the area of phonology. The present study examines one aspect of phonological investigation of the Indo-European languages: vocalism from the early 1800’s to around 1870, the threshold of the neogrammarian era. It attempts to go beyond a mere chronological presentation of research on vocalism in the 19th century to examine other questions, such as the origin of the concepts which linguists employed and the methodology they advanced. Moreover, it attempts to illustrate anew that the history of any science cannot be reduced to a simple linear arrangement of discoveries.













The Sound of Indo-European


Book Description

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.