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P. 979 Comm.: Varro, I ling i .VII 66 (I give firstly the text by de Melo, and then I correct the wrong punctuation by de Melo with the correct punctuation by G.-Sch.) de Melo: I Claudius scribit i axitiosas I demonstrari "consuplicationes" i . P. 171: De Melo writes that Varro is wrong because he confused the ending I um i of I denarium i meaning thousand I denarii i , originally a genitive I mille denarium i > I mille denariorum i , "and this ending confuses Varro : However, Varro was not confused: Varro, I ling i .IX 85 Goetz-Schöll I in ipsis uocabulis ubi additur certus numerus in miliariis aliter atque in reliquis dicitur: nam sic loquontur, "hoc mille denarium", non 'hoc mille denari i // I denariorum i L.Spengel I denarii i B F b , also de Melo reads I denariorum //, et 'haec duo milia denarium, non "duo milia denariorum" i . De Melo had at his disposal a good or excellent knowledge of Indo-European linguistics, perhaps a little reduced only in Hittite, but the Indo-European linguistics and the collection of roots concerns only indirectly Varro and shows a little of the prehistory of Latin and how much richer our linguistic science is in comparison with that of Varro. Here de Melo did not remind us that an IE etymology of I fundus/fundamentum i from a root I bh-udh i - (as supposed by de Melo from DV 250) has been discouraged by both Ernout-Meillet and Walde-Hofmann (Ernout and Meillet 1959: 261f. "On ne peut même affirmer que I f- i du Latin repose sur I bh i -: car on a des forms à I dh- i initial: v.sl. P. 38: De Melo here attributes to Sabine [78]: 142) something Sabine never said, probably because of a misunderstanding produced by the word order de Melo used: "neither in Greek grammar nor in Latin it is the goal of etymology to find the "true meaning" of words ([78]: 142) . [Extracted from the article]

The threefold division noun-verb-adjective is often considered a hallmark of the IE family from the remote PIE phase. However, Alfieri (2016, 2018, forth.) claims that this view is incorrect: while in Latin three major classes of lexemes are found (nouns, verbs and adjectives), in the Sanskrit language of the Rig Veda only two major classes are found (verbal roots and nouns) and the most typical "adjective" (i.e. the Quality Modifier) is a derived stem built on a verbal root meaning a quality. As a consequence, a deep and previously neglected typological change should be reconstructed in the IE family, namely the lexicalization of the adjective class and the change from a parts of speech (PoS) system "without" adjectives and quality concepts verbally encoded, which is still preserved in the RV, to a PoS system with "true" adjectives, which is found in Latin and in almost all other, especially modern and Western, IE languages. In this case, the data in Alfieri (2016, 2018, forth.) are confirmed focusing on the Quality Argument and the Quality Predicate, so as to show that the presence of a lexical class of adjectives is a common development that has come about independently in different branches of the IE family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article continues the discussion on the nature of the early language of Buddhism and the language that the Buddha spoke, arguing that the received Pāli transmission evolved out of an earlier Middle Indic idiom, which is identified as a koine. Evidence for this koine can be found by examining correspondence sets within Pāli and its various varieties and by examining parallel, cognate correspondence sets between Pāli and other Prakrits which have survived. This article compares 30 correspondence sets transmitted in the Dhammapada recensions: the Gāndhārī Prakrit verses, the partially Sanskritized Pāli and Patna Dhammapada Prakrit verses, and the fully Sanskritized verses of the Udānavarga. By comparing cognate words, it demonstrates the existence of an underlying inter-language which in many cases can be shown to be the source of the phonological differences in the transmission. The paper includes a discussion on the two major factors of dialect change, evolution with variation over time, and the diffusionary, synchronic influence of dialect variation; it concludes that both are important, with dialect variation – and the phonological constraints of indigenous speakers who adopted MI as a second language – providing the pathways on which the natural evolutionary process was channeled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study attempts to analyse the permissible syllable structures and the aspiration and voicing of word-initial and word-final segments in the syllable structure of Bangla. A corpus study leads to a detailed analysis of Bangla syllable structure restrictions, relative to the three traditional strata of the Bangla lexicon, namely, Native Bangla (NB, Tadbhava), Sanskrit borrowings (SB, Tatsama and Ardha-Tatsama), and other borrowings (OB, Deshi and Bideshi), following Ito and Mester's work on the Japanese lexicon. Complex codas are allowed only in OB. Complex onsets are ruled out in NB while they have the maximal form s+C+liquid in SB and OB. There is no onset maximisation: Medial clusters in all strata avoid complex onsets if a consonant can be syllabified into the preceding coda (Vp.lV rather than V.plV). Aspiration is banned from the coda in NB but not generally in SB and OB, where restrictions that are more complex obtain. Obstruent voicing contrasts are present in onset and coda, but voicing agreement is enforced in obstruent clusters. Analyses of these restrictions are presented in Optimality Theory: the different strata of the lexicon may have different phonologies, i. e. different constraint ranking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a new description of nominal compounds featuring the noun ādi- ‘beginning’ in Sanskrit. When used as second member of a compound, ādi- is commonly translated as ‘etcetera’ and the resulting compound displays a number of semantic and morphological oddities, as observed in reference grammars. Based on a thorough corpus analysis, we show that ādi-compounds are in fact associated with different functions, and that among other things they can be employed for the task of on-line categorization. Specifically, we argue that they can also encode ad hoc categories. In the second part of the paper, we describe the diachronic process whereby ādi-compounds developed into ad hoc category markers. In so doing, we adopt the perspective of constructionalization and suggest, against the traditional analysis of these forms as compounds, that when meaning ‘etcetera’, ādi- behaves as an affixoid. In this respect, the findings of this paper contribute to the general understanding of the diachronic typology of ad hoc category markers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"We know that Middle Indian (Middle Indo-Aryan) makes its appearance in epigraphy prior to Sanskrit: this is the great linguistic paradox of India." In these words Louis Renou (1956: 84) referred to a problem in Sanskrit studies for which so far no satisfactory solution had been found. I will here propose that the perceived "paradox" derives from the lack of acknowledgement of certain parameters in the linguistic situation of Ancient India which were insufficiently appreciated in Renou's time, but which are at present open to systematic exploration with the help of by now well established sociolinguistic concepts, notably the concept of "diglossia". Three issues will here be addressed in the light of references to ancient and classical Indian texts, Sanskrit and Sanskritic. A simple genetic model is indadequate, especially when the 'linguistic area' applies also to what can be reconstructed for earlier periods. The so-called Sanskrit "Hybrids" in the first millennium CE, including the Prakrits and Epics, are rather to be regarded as emerging "Ausbau" languages of Indo-Aryan with hardly any significant mutual "Abstand" before they will be succesfully "roofed," in the second half of the first millennium CE, by "classical" Sanskrit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on Melchert's observation that in Old Hittite narrative texts an aspectual system seems to be used that is different from the aspectual system found in the majority of Hittite texts (Melchert 1998), this article discusses the nature of the tense-aspect system of Proto-Indo-European, especially on the basis of a comparison between the Sanskrit and Hittite verbal systems (following observations and analyses by Pooth 2009). It is argued that the tense-aspect system of the Old Hittite narrative texts as described by Melchert may go back directly to the system that can be reconstructed for early Proto-Indo-European, namely one in which there was no distinction in tense, but rather a distinction between progressive and non-progressive aspect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The "dative of agent" construction in the Indo-European languages is most likely inherited from Proto-Indo-European (Hettrich 1990). Two recent proposals (Danesi 2013; Luraghi 2016), however, claim that the construction contains no agent at all. Luraghi argues that it is a secondary development from an original beneficiary function, while Danesi maintains that the construction is indeed reconstructable. Following Danesi, we analyze the relevant data in six different Indo-European languages: Sanskrit, Avestan, Ancient Greek, Latin, Tocharian, and Lithuanian, revealing similarities at a morphosyntactic level, a semantic level, and to some extent at an etymological level. An analysis involving a modal reading of the predicate, with a dative subject and a nominative object, is better equipped to account for the particulars of the construction than the traditional agentive/passive analysis. The proposal is couched within Construction Grammar, where the basic unit of language is the construction, i. e. a form-function correspondence. As constructions are by definition units of comparanda, they can be successfully utilized in the reconstruction of a proto-construction for Proto-Indo-European. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Saussure's mid-career involvement in psychologist Theodore Flournoy's study of the renowned psychic Catherine Elise Müller (alias Hélène Smith) brought him into contact with imaginary languages. Flournoy asked Saussure to see what he could make of some transcriptions of Müller's trance induced speech, which she had claimed was in Sanskrit or the language of the inhabitants of Mars. Saussure assisted Flournoy in his research from 1896 to 1899 looking for linguistic qualities of Müller's strange utterances. In doing so found support for Flournoy's theory of teleological automatism, a process in which unconsciously stored information could be recalled for the purpose of manifesting so-called psychic phenomena. While this episode of Saussure's career has often been treated as a peculiarity, it is also worth considering points of continuity between Saussure's analyses of Müller's glossolalia and the rest of his career. In this essay I will discuss how several of the psychological underpinnings of major concepts expressed in the Cours de linguistique générale found exercise and elaboration as Saussure considered the problem of how Müller assembled her mysterious utterances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is devoted to the labile verbs in the Middle Indo-Aryan languages. To begin with, the general causes of the diachronic development of lability are taken into consideration. The main such cause is suggested to be the casual diachronic deletion of the valency changing morphemes. In this respect, the valency changing verbal morphology of late Sanskrit, along with its outcome at the Middle Indian stage, is taken into consideration. All of the possible sources of ambiguity are identified. Subsequently, it is shown how these ambiguities effectively brought about the creation of labile patterns, which are indeed attested in our sources in MIA languages (namely, literary and epigraphic Prakrits, Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit and Pāli). At the end, some indirect traces of labile verbs in MIA languages are hypothesized through the analysis of the writings of the Pāṇinian grammarians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

No fully satisfactory account of the subtype of the Hittite ḫiconjugation with the pattern Pres3Sg -āC1i, Pres3Pl -aC1C1anzi (e. g., aki, akkanzi 'die(s)') has yet been presented. Efforts to explain it in terms of the established Proto-Anatolian 'lenition' rule face incontrovertible counterexamples, and alternatives such as a lengthened-grade perfect have their own obstacles. Building on a crucial observation by Kloekhorst (2008), I will defend the proposal of Kimball (1999) that there was a separate 'lenition' of just * h2 after accented * ó in pre-Hittite, motivating it phonetically in terms of the already established 'stronger' or 'longer' quality of PIE phonemic */o/ vs. */e/ and */a/, as reflected in 'Brugmann's Law' in Sanskrit and 'Čop's Law' in Luvian. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on a pilot study which investigated the prevalence of mergers over phoneme-creation processes to test the claim of Quentin Atkinson in a 2011 report published in "Science." Phoneme counts for some ancient Indo-European languages are presented which include Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Indo-Iranian and Sanskrit. Findings of the study are explained highlighting the rise of new phonemes by language-internal processes, and that all borrowing come from Sanskrit.

The article offers information on the evidence which supports the assumption that Greek undergone laryngeal aspiration. It mentions that the evidence of aspiration cannot be sustained in three cases because of the cognates in other languages and the evolutions that the acceptance of aspiration presupposes in case with ϰαϴαϱóς and Οϱεοεϴιον. The greek word linked with Sanskrit sankhah and Latin congius has been used to prove that *h2 is aspirated in Greek. Moreover, ϰαϴαϱóς is connected with the Sanskrit adjective sithirah and the verbal form srathayati.

The article provides information regarding the etymology of cow's Indo-European word, considering the Stang's Law. It explores the two kinds of reconstruction that have and have not laryngeal, referring to *gweh3us and *gwous. It mentions that *gwous is the correct reconstruction when Stang's Law was considered. It suggests that the word cow's accusative singular in Sanskrit, Doric and Homeric Greek, and Sabellic are another proof favourig such reconstruction.

The author argues that a theory of diglossia should focus on writing and literacy and how oral and literate varieties affect each other. Diglossia, I think, is such a specifity within the general field of societal multilingualism. The origin of Haitian Creole can be traced to exogenous language contact and the reduction of a High variety that had a fullblown written standard when Low came into existence. Although Haitian Creole is spoken by the entire population of Haiti, the functional distribution of it and French has not lost its potential association with class distinctions and race. As a feature to be investigated, writing is more manageable than most other properties of languages and so is literacy with respect to speech communities. In India, diglossia is very common, not because of the Vedic tradition but because Sanskritization drove a wedge between the Sanskritized vernaculars and the real vernacular spoken by the man in the street. There can be little doubt that the basic idea that writing is nothing but a visual surrogate of speech cannot do justice to either the sociocultural or the linguistic consequences of the introduction of writing into human communication. But the spell of an old tradition is strong. If people choose to become literate and if they choose to speak as they write or to write as they speak, a realignment of codes will be brought about.

This article investigates the derivative mechanism of Panini's Astadhyayi, a highly sophisticated formal device that comprises a set of rules which are capable of formally deriving an infinite number of correct Sanskrit utterances in their semantic interpretation. Some important metalinguistic devices are discussed. Rule applications at various stages in the derivational histories of cited forms are explained. This should justify the need for positing some derivative conventions and traffic rules which underlie the derivative mechanism of Panini's grammar.

The Sanskrit (medio) passive 3rd person singular aorist in -i has elicited some unusual epithets from scholars past and present. The present study is an attempt to draw a functional profile of the passive aorist (PA) in the Rgveda. It is suggested that the PA is indeed a passive. It was also shown that it is a "perfect", i.e. that its aspectual role is to focus the hearer's attention on the moment at which the Einwirkung has been accomplished, has become a fact of some consequence to him. This pinpointing of the moment of emergence is responsible for the dramatic, almost triumphant nuance felt in many PA-clauses.

The complex social stratification of modern Indian life and the attendant highly diversified social contribution of the languages of modern South Asia have for a long time aroused justified attention in sociolinguistic literature. The purpose of this paper is to present and discuss this wealth of data and view in a sociolinguistic frame of reference. The terminology traditionally employed in reference to the Indo-Aryan dialects of pre-Muslim South Asia suggests a chronological development of the following sort, Old Indo-Aryan, and Middle Indo-Aryan or Prakrit. The relationship between Old and Middle Indo-Aryan was, in fairly early times already, not just a bidialectal one but a truly diglossic one is shown by a number of facts. First of all, there are Sanskritic tradition fairly early attestations of hyper-Sanskritized forms, that is, of Sanskrit formations which were treated as if they were Prakritic and which therefore were subjected to Sanskritization. As Bloomfield and Edgerton concluded, forms of this sort indicate a rather definite consciousness of the antithesis between the phonetics of the high speech and of the popular dialects. Similarly, Meillet suggested that the fact that later Vedic and Classical Sanskrit generalize -ais as the a-stem instrumental plural as against the competing Rig-Vedic ending -ebhis is the result of an anti-Prakritic attitude.