The East Baltic languages, Lithuanian and Latvian, are well known for their conservative phonology with respect to Proto-Indo-European. This has led to a stereotype that these languages have... Show moreThe East Baltic languages, Lithuanian and Latvian, are well known for their conservative phonology with respect to Proto-Indo-European. This has led to a stereotype that these languages have developed in relative isolation without much contact with other languages. In this dissertation, I take a deep dive into the East Baltic lexicon, peeling away the layers of prehistoric borrowings in the process. As well as significant contact events with known languages, like the Russian dialect of Novgorod-Pskov, Gothic and the ancestors of modern Finnish, Sámi and Mordvin, the lexicon also reveals evidence of contact with unattested languages from which earlier populations must have shifted upon the arrival of the Balts in the Baltic region. The fragments obtained not only shed light on the linguistic features of these lost languages, but also provide a new perspective on the sociolinguistic scenario which led the earlier populations of the region to undergo language shift. Show less
This thesis discusses the earliest Iranian loanwords in Tocharian, a branch of two Indo-European languages spoken in Western China during the first millennium of our era, as well as an early... Show moreThis thesis discusses the earliest Iranian loanwords in Tocharian, a branch of two Indo-European languages spoken in Western China during the first millennium of our era, as well as an early stratum of so-called "BMAC" loanwords in Tocharian. 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
This dissertation consists of an investigation of the historical and sociolinguistic implications of some of the linguistic data that have been preserved from Merovingian Gaul. The data that was... Show moreThis dissertation consists of an investigation of the historical and sociolinguistic implications of some of the linguistic data that have been preserved from Merovingian Gaul. The data that was investigated here mainly consisted of Romance and Germanic lexis, which is the outcome of earlier lexical exchange (borrowing) between Germanic, Romance and Celtic. The central aim of this dissertation was to provide an overview of the linguistic and extra-linguistic factors that were involved in this lexical exchange, and thereby contribute to our knowledge of the Merovingian vernaculars in particular and Merovingian society in general. On a more general level, this study provides an overview of how linguistic data might complement the archaeological and historical frameworks, that are used to understand the transition from Roman to Merovingian Gaul. Special attention is paid to the Merovingian redactions of the Salic Law, both as a unique historical witness to everyday life in post-Roman Gaul as well as being a unique linguistic witness in its preservation of the Old Frankish Malberg glosses. Additionally, this dissertation provides an overview of Pre-French sound change and its relation to Merovingian Latin. Show less
In this thesis I discuss Hittite verbs and formations that contain or may contain a nasal infix as well as nu-verbs, in order to outline the development of these types from PIE to Hittite and... Show moreIn this thesis I discuss Hittite verbs and formations that contain or may contain a nasal infix as well as nu-verbs, in order to outline the development of these types from PIE to Hittite and establish the extent to which the Hittite nasal verbs are related to comparable formations in the other Indo-European languages. Apart from treating the formal and etymological aspects of these verbs, this study also focuses on the semantics of the nasal affixes. In Hittitological literature they are often assumed to have a causative or a factitive meaning, but these functions do not cover the semantics of all the verbs with these affixes: there are infixed and nu-verbs that are clearly not causative, in fact there are even several intransitive nu-verbs. In this thesis it is therefore argued that the best solution to embrace the polysemy of nasal affixes is to assume that the underlying function of these morphemes is raising in transitivity. Show less
This dissertation is a descriptive grammar of the language Tadaksahak spoken by about 30,000 people living in the most eastern part of Mali. The four chapters of the book give 1. Information about... Show moreThis dissertation is a descriptive grammar of the language Tadaksahak spoken by about 30,000 people living in the most eastern part of Mali. The four chapters of the book give 1. Information about the background of the group. 2. The phonological features of the language with the inventory of the phonemes and the observed sound rules. 3. The description of the morphology. It is shown that verbal derivation pulls on unrelated Tamasheq for causative, reciprocal and middle as well as passive. In addition, any verb root that is of Songhay origin is suppleted when derived and a semantic equivalent of Tamasheq origin takes its place. Another non-Songhay feature concerns inflection where the subject pronoun cliticizes to the verb and is always present even when a noun phrase holds the subject slot. The nominalization strategy used depends on the etymology of the term, a feature paralleled in the formation of adjectives. 4. Basic syntax. Noun phrases, simple clauses, focalization and topicalization, question words with their syntax, complement clauses and the two possible relativization strategies as well as subordinate clauses are described. The appendixes provide texts with glosses, lists of verb roots with their suppletions when derived, and two differently organized wordlists. Show less
Deze dissertatie biedt een volledig bijgewerkte en gemodernisserde etymologische beschrijving van 530 Armeense lexemen, waarvan Indo-Europese oorsprong zeker of waarschijnlijk is. Armeens is vanuit... Show moreDeze dissertatie biedt een volledig bijgewerkte en gemodernisserde etymologische beschrijving van 530 Armeense lexemen, waarvan Indo-Europese oorsprong zeker of waarschijnlijk is. Armeens is vanuit Indo-Europees standpunt al meer dan 100 jaar bestudeerd. Er bestaan veel waardevolle handboeken, detailstudies en overzichten van de vergelijkende studie van het Armeens. De meeste daarvan concentreren zich op het Klassiek Armeens (ca. 500 na Chr.) en gebruiken slechts zelden moderne dialectale en etnografische gegevens. Niet-literaire gegevens vanuit de Armeense dialecten zijn voor het grootste deel buiten het blikveld van het Indo-Europese etymologische onderzoek gebleven. Een uitzondering vormen de fundamentele studies van Ačaryan (HAB) en Jahukyan (1972 en 1987). Dit boek integreert de lexicale, fonetische en morfologische gegevens van de Armeense dialecten en van etnografische beschrijvingen op een systematische wijze in de etymologische benadering van het Indo-Europese lexicon binnen het Armeens. Deze benadering is nieuw. In deze dissertatie wordt gebruik gemaakt van het materiaal dat is verzameld in Ačaryan's etymologische woordenboek en in de bestaande beschrijvingen van de individuele dialecten. Ook wordt een grote hoeveelheid materiaal verwerkt dat is geëxcerpeerd uit folkloreteksten en antropologische beschrijvingen, die meestal onbekend of onbereikbaar zijn voor geleerden buiten Armenië. Dit werk bestaat uit twee hoofdgedeelten: een etymologische bestudering van Armeense woorden die van zekere of waarschijnlijke Indo-Europese oorsprong zijn, en een eerste poging om te komen tot een zekere systematisering van taalkundige en culturele elementen die men kan afleiden uit de etymologische behandeling. In het eerste deel worden de geselecteerde lexemen op een systematische manier gepresenteerd en bestudeerd. In een filologische sectie worden de semantiek en de literaire referenties van een woord met zijn afleidingen behandeld met inbegrip van de morfologische kenmerken. Voor ieder lemma volgt dan een overzicht van de dialectale distributie en een discussie van de linguistische, dialectgeografische en etnografische aspecten die van belang zijn voor een etymologische beoordeling van het literaire materiaal. Daarop volgt een volledige etymologische discussie met insluiting van andere relevante Indo-Europese talen. Het tweede deel biedt een evaluatie van enkele resultaten van de etymologische studie in deel 1. Het vormt tevens een vooruitblik op diepgaander soortgelijk onderzoek. Er worden gevolgtrekkingen gemaakt voor de etymologische studie van het Armeens in algemene zin. Tenslotte worden systematisch de resultaten van de etnografische gegevens uitgewerkt. Show less
