This dissertation reconstructs the history of Alorese, an Austronesian language spoken in east Indonesia, by combining perspectives from oral history and historical linguistics. The social history... Show moreThis dissertation reconstructs the history of Alorese, an Austronesian language spoken in east Indonesia, by combining perspectives from oral history and historical linguistics. The social history of the Alorese people is reconstructed through migration stories based on narrative accounts from fourteen Alorese villages. The historical linguistic study of Alorese begins with a grammatical description of the Alorese dialect spoken in northeast Pantar. This is followed by a study of Alorese historical phonology, in which varieties of Alorese are compared with varieties of its sister language, Western Lamaholot. This dissertation also examines lexical borrowing from the Alor-Pantar (Papuan) languages into Alorese and vice versa. Based on a combined investigation of lingusitic and oral history, this dissertation proposes that the homeland of the Alorese people may have been in northeast Pantar. The study of Alorese historical phonology results in the bottom-up reconstruction of the sounds of Proto-Alorese and its vocabulary, and the establishment of Alorese as a subgroup of the Flores-Lembata languages, the next higher group within Malayo-Polynesian. In addition, the investigation of loanwords also provides insight into the history of contact between the Alorese and the speakers of the Alor-Pantar (Papuan) languages in the Alor archipelago. Show less
In the field of Hittite linguistics there is a longstanding debate on the phonetics of the Hittite fortis and lenis stops in intervocalic position, and on how to phonologically interpret the... Show moreIn the field of Hittite linguistics there is a longstanding debate on the phonetics of the Hittite fortis and lenis stops in intervocalic position, and on how to phonologically interpret the distinction between these two series. Although it is usually assumed that the two series were distinct in voice, /t/ vs. /d/, respectively, arguments in favor of a length distinction, /tː/ vs. /t/, have been put forward as well (Melchert 1994 and Kloekhorst 2008; 2014; 2016). This article will discuss two recent treatments of this topic: one by Simon (2020), who specifically argues against a length distinction, and adduces new arguments in favor of the traditionally assumed voice distinction; and one by Patri (2009; 20191)), who rather posits a distinction /th / vs. /d/. It will be argued that the arguments used by both Simon and Patri are untenable, and that all evidence rather points to a length contrast, /tː/ vs. /t/. Show less
The Luwian language belongs to the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family and was spoken around 3000 years ago (approx. 1500 – 700 BCE; Turkey northern Syria). Even though this... Show moreThe Luwian language belongs to the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family and was spoken around 3000 years ago (approx. 1500 – 700 BCE; Turkey northern Syria). Even though this language hasno living descendants and left no significant traces in any language currently spoken in the area, we do have a steadily growing corpus of texts, written on clay, stone and metal, in two different writing systems: cuneiform and hieroglyphic writing. This dissertation is concerned with the question of how Luwian must have sounded (phonetics) and how its sounds were systematically organised (phonology). It also treats the language’s history, tracing the origins of its sounds back to Proto-Anatolian and Proto-Indo-European. Five chapters, each of which has been published in a peer-reviewed journal or offered for publication, cover the most important domains of Luwian phonology: vowels, consonants and syllable structure. At the same time, this thesis illustrates various methods used to retrieve phonetic and phonological details from a dead language. These involve etymology, diachronic and synchronic typology and rigorous orthographical study. Along the way, various proposals are made to refine our phonetic interpretation of the writing systems in which the language was documented. Show less
This article starts with the observation that the Hittite 3sg.pret.act. form šipantaš, šipandaš (OH/MS) ‘(s)he libated’ can hardly be analysed as consisting of a tarna-class inflected stem šipant... Show moreThis article starts with the observation that the Hittite 3sg.pret.act. form šipantaš, šipandaš (OH/MS) ‘(s)he libated’ can hardly be analysed as consisting of a tarna-class inflected stem šipant/da- + the 3sg.pret.act. ending -š, since the OH/MH verbal paradigm of ‘to libate’ contains no other tarna-class inflected forms. It is therefore argued that šipantaš, šipandaš should be analysed as consisting of the consonantal verbal stem šipant- + -š, which implies that the a in šipantaš, šipandaš is an empty vowel. In order to explain the spelling -ntaš, -ntaš vs. the spelling -nza, which is commonly used to note down the sequence /-nts/ < PIE *-nts, it is argued that -ntaš, -ndaš denotes /-ntːs/, the regular outcome of a PIE sequence *-nds. Show less
The prehistory of Old Armenian reveals a strong impact of language contact and internal drift resulting in an intricate combination of Indo-European archaisms and inner-Armenian innovations.... Show moreThe prehistory of Old Armenian reveals a strong impact of language contact and internal drift resulting in an intricate combination of Indo-European archaisms and inner-Armenian innovations. The dissertation contributes to the study of such phenomena by examining a set of Old Armenian verbal classes that can be securely connected to their Indo-European prototypes, namely, the so-called nasal classes with a dental nasal phoneme in the affixes marking the imperfective stem of their paradigms. Traditionally, the comparative historical grammar of Old Armenian has been concerned mainly with formal morphological correspondences, whereas the lexico-syntactic categories behind the morphological changes have been largely neglected. In the present dissertation, the evolution of the verbal classes from Proto-Indo-European to Old Armenian is examined according to a set of formal and semantic parameters including the morphological structure of the verbal paradigm, the argument structure, and the aspectual features. In particular, the dissertation describes Proto-Armenian changes of transitivity marking, analogical spread of the verbal suffixes based on aspectual meanings, the direction of root levelling over the verbal paradigm, and paradigmatic types of verbal classes that can be postulated for Proto-Armenian and dialectal Proto-Indo-European. Show less
Following Rieken’s 2008 establishment that the Anatolian hieroglyphic sign *41 (CAPERE/tà) denoted the syllable /da/, with lenis /d/, Yakubovich (2008) argued that the sign’s phonetic value was... Show moreFollowing Rieken’s 2008 establishment that the Anatolian hieroglyphic sign *41 (CAPERE/tà) denoted the syllable /da/, with lenis /d/, Yakubovich (2008) argued that the sign’s phonetic value was acrophonically derived from the Hittite verb dā-i /d- ‘to take’. In the present article it is argued that this view can no longer be upheld in view of new proposals regarding the phonetic value of sign *41 (rather [ða]) and the interpretation of Hitt. dā-i /d- (rather [tʔā-]). It is proposed that the value of sign *41 has instead been derived from the Luwian verb ‘to take’, lā-i /l-, which from a historical linguistic perspective must go back to earlier *ðā-i / *ð-. This acrophonic assignment of the value [ða] to sign *41 must then be dated to the beginning of the 18th century BCE at the latest, which implies that already by that time the Anatolian hieroglyphs were in use as a real script that made use of phonetic signs. Show less
The peripheral Mongolic languages of the Qinghai-Gansu area in China comprise Eastern Yugur (Shira Yugur) and the Shirongol languages. The latter can be subdivided in a Monguor branch, consisting... Show moreThe peripheral Mongolic languages of the Qinghai-Gansu area in China comprise Eastern Yugur (Shira Yugur) and the Shirongol languages. The latter can be subdivided in a Monguor branch, consisting of Mongghul and Mangghuer, and a Baoanic branch, consisting of Baoan, Kangjia, and Dongxiang (Santa). The internal taxonomy of the Qinghai-Gansu languages will be discussed in a separate section. The Qinghai-Gansu languages are increasingly well-described. They have also been the subject of studies in language contact, mostly in the context of the Amdo or Qinghai-Gansu Sprachbund. This study will approach the phonology of Qinghai-Gansu Mongolic from a comparative historical viewpoint. It provides an overview of the phonological developments of the Qinghai-Gansu languages, comparing them to the reconstructed ancestral language. At the same time it will investigate the archaic features that can be found in these languages, in order to improve the reconstructions of individual Mongolic lexemes. The book ends with a comparative supplement of about 1350 reconstructed Common Mongolic items, accompanied by the modern forms they are based on and, where necessary, arguments for the chosen reconstruction. Show less
Hittite was the language of the Hittite Empire that ruled over vast parts of Turkey from 1650 - 1180 BC. It was written in the cuneiform script on clay tablets. Linguistically, it belongs to the... Show moreHittite was the language of the Hittite Empire that ruled over vast parts of Turkey from 1650 - 1180 BC. It was written in the cuneiform script on clay tablets. Linguistically, it belongs to the Anatolian language group, which is one of the twelve branches of the large Indo-European language family. Within the Indo-European language family, Hittite is the oldest attested language. In over 1200 pages this dissertation describes the history of Hittite in the light of its Indo-European origin. It consists of two parts. Part One, 'Towards a Hittite Historical Grammar', contains a description of the Hittite phoneme inventory and a discussion of the sound laws and morphological changes that have taken place between the Proto-Indo-European and the Hittite language stage. Part Two, 'An Etymological Dictionary of the Hittite Inherited Lexicon', contains etymological treatments of all Hittite words of Indo-European origin. One of the most important conclusions of this dissertation is that the Anatolian language group was the first one to split off from Proto-Indo-European and that all other Indo-European branches have undergone a period of common innovations. Therewith Anatolian, and especially Hittite, occupies a very important position within comparative Indo-European linguistics as it sometimes has retained linguistic information that has been lost in all other Indo-European languages Show less
