Books by Matthew Scarborough
The Aeolic dialects of Ancient Greek (Lesbian, Thessalian, and Boeotian) are characterised by a s... more The Aeolic dialects of Ancient Greek (Lesbian, Thessalian, and Boeotian) are characterised by a small bundle of commonly shared innovations, yet at the same time they exhibit remarkable linguistic diversity. While traditionally classied together in modern scholarship since the nineteenth century, in recent decades doubt has been cast on whether they form a coherent dialectal subgroup of Ancient Greek. In this monograph Matthew Scarborough outlines the history of problem of Aeolic classication from antiquity to the present day, collects and analyses the primary evidence for the linguistic innovations that unite and divide the group, and contributes an innovative new statistical methodology for evaluating highly contested genetic subgroupings in dialectology, ultimately arguing in support of the traditional classfication.
Articles by Matthew Scarborough
by Paul Heggarty, Cormac Anderson, Matthew Scarborough, Benedict King, Remco Bouckaert, Lechosław Jocz, Martin Joachim Kümmel, Erik Anonby, Matthew Boutilier, Cassandra Freiberg, Robert Tegethoff, Kim Schulte, Ganesh Kumar Gupta, Simon J . Greenhill, and Russell Gray Science, 2023
**To download free**, follow the info at: https://iecor.clld.org
The origins of the Indo-Euro... more **To download free**, follow the info at: https://iecor.clld.org
The origins of the Indo-European language family are hotly disputed. Bayesian phylogenetic analyses of core vocabulary have produced conflicting results, with some supporting a farming expansion out of Anatolia ~9000 years before present (yr B.P.), while others support a spread with horse-based pastoralism out of the Pontic-Caspian Steppe ~6000 yr B.P. Here we present an extensive database of Indo-European core vocabulary that eliminates past inconsistencies in cognate coding. Ancestry-enabled phylogenetic analysis of this dataset indicates that few ancient languages are direct ancestors of modern clades and produces a root age of ~8120 yr B.P. for the family. Although this date is not consistent with the Steppe hypothesis, it does not rule out an initial homeland south of the Caucasus, with a subsequent branch northward onto the steppe and then across Europe. We reconcile this hybrid hypothesis with recently published ancient DNA evidence from the steppe and the northern Fertile Crescent.
Parabiblica Vol. 1 (Mohr Siebeck)
With the publication of the Arabic recension of the Testament of Solomon (henceforth: TestSol(Ar)... more With the publication of the Arabic recension of the Testament of Solomon (henceforth: TestSol(Ar)) and its translation into English, Juan Pedro Monferrer-Sala has filled a long neglected lacuna in the study of this pseudepigraphon and its preservation outside of its original Hellenistic cultural and linguistic context. In this paper, we aim to expand on that aspect of Monferrer-Sala’s work by further analyzing the contents and the structure of TestSol(Ar). We particularly focus on its relationship to a little-known Coptic work provisionally titled Legend of Solomon and Thabor and what that relationship can tell us about the transmission and the Sitz im Leben of TestSol(Ar) in Coptic- and Arabic-speaking Egypt.
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 2021
2021. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 31 (3) : 599-607
Abstract: Since H. Humbach's Baktr... more 2021. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 31 (3) : 599-607
Abstract: Since H. Humbach's Baktrische Sprachdenkmäler (Wiesbaden, 1966) the main etymological proposal for Bactrian χϸονο ‘(calendar) year, (regnal) year’ has been A. Thierfelder's suggestion of a loanword from Hellenistic Greek χρόνος ‘time’. In this article the plausibility of this etymology is re-examined, and it is further argued that it should be rejected on the grounds that the formal phonological differences between the potential Hellenistic Greek source form and its presumable loan-adaptation form in Bactrian are inconsistent with what is known of Bactrian diachronic phonology.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1356186321000079
In: Matilde Serangeli & Thomas Olander (eds.). 2020. Dispersals and diversification: Linguistic a... more In: Matilde Serangeli & Thomas Olander (eds.). 2020. Dispersals and diversification: Linguistic and archaeological perspectives on the early stages of Indo-European (Brill's Studies in Indo-European Languages & Linguistics). Leiden & Boston: Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004416192_011
Because of the publisher's embargo I cannot yet upload a digital offprint of the paper.
THE VERSION OF THE PAPER GIVEN HERE IS THE VERSION SUBMITTED TO PEER-REVIEWERS. PLEASE CITE THE ACTUAL PUBLISHED PAPER AVAILABLE AT THE DOI ADDRESS ABOVE.
Abstract: Cladistic hypotheses are ideally based on arguments that use cumulative evidence from a wide range of shared innovations inherited from a more recent ancestor. The majority of historical linguists would agree that the best evidence for subgrouping would be shared phonological and morphological innovations, while evidence from proportions of shared lexical cognacy is less reliable for linguistic subgroup-ing. Recent high-profile studies have appeared, however, that have been based exclusively on comparative lexical material. The results of these methods have been sharply criticised, but in spite of the criticisms to cognacy-based approaches, there remains some potential that the lexical cognacy may provide some useful data to supplement cladistic hypotheses as part of an overall assessment of the complete bundle of available isoglosses. If lexical cognacy judgements can be treated as a potential source of data for cladistic hypotheses, how can they be implemented in a methodologically rigorous way? This chapter focuses on case studies from methodological issues that have arisen in encoding Indo-European lexical cognacy data on the Indo-European Cognate Relationships (IE-CoR) database project based at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. These issues are illustrated through case studies from problems that have arisen in assigning cognacy coding to lexical data. As such this chapter contributes discussion for improving the reliability of cognacy data for cladistic analyses as a supplement to more traditional analyses based on comparative phonological and morphological criteria.
Teiresias (2017) 47.1:14-24. This article offers a brief synopsis and partial summary of my Ph.D.... more Teiresias (2017) 47.1:14-24. This article offers a brief synopsis and partial summary of my Ph.D. Dissertation The Aeolic Dialects of Ancient Greek: A Study in Historical Dialectology and Linguistic Classification (Cambridge, 2016). This will consist of situating the contribution of the study in its scholarly context (summarising the first chapter of the dissertation), followed by a more concise synopsis of the linguistic features analysed by the dissertation and its evaluation methodology. The main dissertation synopsis is then followed by a concise survey of the dissertation’s principal results for Boeotian dialect research, aside from the dissertation’s general conclusions that an Aeolic subgrouping is likely, and that Boeotian appears to share a closer affinity with Thessalian than it shares with Lesbian, and that from the cumulative evidence a Thessalian-Boeotian subgrouping within Aeolic appears to be more likely than a Thessalian-Lesbian one.
Cf. the whole issue of Teiresias 47.1 Open Access @ http://www.teiresias-journal.org/
Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik (2015) 193:166-171. Attached also are supplementary d... more Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik (2015) 193:166-171. Attached also are supplementary drawings of the inscription not published in the article.
In: G. Kotzoglou et al. (eds.), 2014. 11th International Conference on Greek Linguistics: Selecte... more In: G. Kotzoglou et al. (eds.), 2014. 11th International Conference on Greek Linguistics: Selected Papers / Πρακτικά. Rhodes: Department of Mediterranean Studies, University of the Aegean, 1535-1548
Book Reviews by Matthew Scarborough
More Info: Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2018.10.28.
Cypro-Minoan is perhaps one of the least known and least understood of the various scripts derive... more Cypro-Minoan is perhaps one of the least known and least understood of the various scripts derived from the Aegean tradition of writing, among which Linear A and Linear B are the best-known representatives. Part of the reason for this is that the Cypro-Minoan writing system(s) present a very diverse corpus of material spread over a very small number of objects, and no complete published corpus exists. The book under review by Silvia Ferrara is the first of two projected volumes on Cypro-Minoan: this first volume conducts a new contextual, epigraphic, and palaeographical analysis of the inscriptions, while the second will present for the first time a complete corpus, scheduled to be published by Oxford University Press in 2013.1
Theses and Dissertations by Matthew Scarborough
Websites by Matthew Scarborough
Personal website, weblog, and pedagogical materials.
Talks by Matthew Scarborough
Accepted abstract of paper to be presented at The Split: Reconstructing Early Indo-European Langu... more Accepted abstract of paper to be presented at The Split: Reconstructing Early Indo-European Language and Culture. University of Copenhagen (13–15 September 2017).
Paper given at the 1st Annual Oxbridge Philology Day, University of Cambridge, June 17th, 2017
Talk given at the IELex 2 Workshop, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena. ... more Talk given at the IELex 2 Workshop, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena. November 26-29, 2015.
The regional dialects of Ancient Greek (attested ca. 700 – 350 BCE ) have a complex geographical ... more The regional dialects of Ancient Greek (attested ca. 700 – 350 BCE ) have a complex geographical distribution. These dialects, however, can be classified into four principal subgroupings: Attic-Ionic, Doric, Aeolic, and Arcado-Cypriot. The Attic-Ionic, Aeolic, and Arcado-Cypriot subgroups are normally considered to be genetic subgroupings, that is they are believed to form distinct clades descended from a putative Proto-Greek ancestral to all the local dialects. Some recent scholarship has argued against the genetic subgrouping of the Aeolic and Arcado-Cypriot dialect subgroupings using a hypercritical methodology. In this talk I will argue that these views are methodologically flawed. To counter these hypercritical proposals I propose that the traditional classification may be re-affirmed through quantitative analysis of the dialect features, and will attempt to demonstrate this case through the development of a probabilistic model of dialectal subgrouping. To do this, I make an application of this probabilistic methodology to the Arcado-Cypriot subgrouping of Ancient Greek.
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Books by Matthew Scarborough
Articles by Matthew Scarborough
The origins of the Indo-European language family are hotly disputed. Bayesian phylogenetic analyses of core vocabulary have produced conflicting results, with some supporting a farming expansion out of Anatolia ~9000 years before present (yr B.P.), while others support a spread with horse-based pastoralism out of the Pontic-Caspian Steppe ~6000 yr B.P. Here we present an extensive database of Indo-European core vocabulary that eliminates past inconsistencies in cognate coding. Ancestry-enabled phylogenetic analysis of this dataset indicates that few ancient languages are direct ancestors of modern clades and produces a root age of ~8120 yr B.P. for the family. Although this date is not consistent with the Steppe hypothesis, it does not rule out an initial homeland south of the Caucasus, with a subsequent branch northward onto the steppe and then across Europe. We reconcile this hybrid hypothesis with recently published ancient DNA evidence from the steppe and the northern Fertile Crescent.
Abstract: Since H. Humbach's Baktrische Sprachdenkmäler (Wiesbaden, 1966) the main etymological proposal for Bactrian χϸονο ‘(calendar) year, (regnal) year’ has been A. Thierfelder's suggestion of a loanword from Hellenistic Greek χρόνος ‘time’. In this article the plausibility of this etymology is re-examined, and it is further argued that it should be rejected on the grounds that the formal phonological differences between the potential Hellenistic Greek source form and its presumable loan-adaptation form in Bactrian are inconsistent with what is known of Bactrian diachronic phonology.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1356186321000079
Because of the publisher's embargo I cannot yet upload a digital offprint of the paper.
THE VERSION OF THE PAPER GIVEN HERE IS THE VERSION SUBMITTED TO PEER-REVIEWERS. PLEASE CITE THE ACTUAL PUBLISHED PAPER AVAILABLE AT THE DOI ADDRESS ABOVE.
Abstract: Cladistic hypotheses are ideally based on arguments that use cumulative evidence from a wide range of shared innovations inherited from a more recent ancestor. The majority of historical linguists would agree that the best evidence for subgrouping would be shared phonological and morphological innovations, while evidence from proportions of shared lexical cognacy is less reliable for linguistic subgroup-ing. Recent high-profile studies have appeared, however, that have been based exclusively on comparative lexical material. The results of these methods have been sharply criticised, but in spite of the criticisms to cognacy-based approaches, there remains some potential that the lexical cognacy may provide some useful data to supplement cladistic hypotheses as part of an overall assessment of the complete bundle of available isoglosses. If lexical cognacy judgements can be treated as a potential source of data for cladistic hypotheses, how can they be implemented in a methodologically rigorous way? This chapter focuses on case studies from methodological issues that have arisen in encoding Indo-European lexical cognacy data on the Indo-European Cognate Relationships (IE-CoR) database project based at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. These issues are illustrated through case studies from problems that have arisen in assigning cognacy coding to lexical data. As such this chapter contributes discussion for improving the reliability of cognacy data for cladistic analyses as a supplement to more traditional analyses based on comparative phonological and morphological criteria.
Cf. the whole issue of Teiresias 47.1 Open Access @ http://www.teiresias-journal.org/
Book Reviews by Matthew Scarborough
Theses and Dissertations by Matthew Scarborough
Websites by Matthew Scarborough
Talks by Matthew Scarborough
The origins of the Indo-European language family are hotly disputed. Bayesian phylogenetic analyses of core vocabulary have produced conflicting results, with some supporting a farming expansion out of Anatolia ~9000 years before present (yr B.P.), while others support a spread with horse-based pastoralism out of the Pontic-Caspian Steppe ~6000 yr B.P. Here we present an extensive database of Indo-European core vocabulary that eliminates past inconsistencies in cognate coding. Ancestry-enabled phylogenetic analysis of this dataset indicates that few ancient languages are direct ancestors of modern clades and produces a root age of ~8120 yr B.P. for the family. Although this date is not consistent with the Steppe hypothesis, it does not rule out an initial homeland south of the Caucasus, with a subsequent branch northward onto the steppe and then across Europe. We reconcile this hybrid hypothesis with recently published ancient DNA evidence from the steppe and the northern Fertile Crescent.
Abstract: Since H. Humbach's Baktrische Sprachdenkmäler (Wiesbaden, 1966) the main etymological proposal for Bactrian χϸονο ‘(calendar) year, (regnal) year’ has been A. Thierfelder's suggestion of a loanword from Hellenistic Greek χρόνος ‘time’. In this article the plausibility of this etymology is re-examined, and it is further argued that it should be rejected on the grounds that the formal phonological differences between the potential Hellenistic Greek source form and its presumable loan-adaptation form in Bactrian are inconsistent with what is known of Bactrian diachronic phonology.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1356186321000079
Because of the publisher's embargo I cannot yet upload a digital offprint of the paper.
THE VERSION OF THE PAPER GIVEN HERE IS THE VERSION SUBMITTED TO PEER-REVIEWERS. PLEASE CITE THE ACTUAL PUBLISHED PAPER AVAILABLE AT THE DOI ADDRESS ABOVE.
Abstract: Cladistic hypotheses are ideally based on arguments that use cumulative evidence from a wide range of shared innovations inherited from a more recent ancestor. The majority of historical linguists would agree that the best evidence for subgrouping would be shared phonological and morphological innovations, while evidence from proportions of shared lexical cognacy is less reliable for linguistic subgroup-ing. Recent high-profile studies have appeared, however, that have been based exclusively on comparative lexical material. The results of these methods have been sharply criticised, but in spite of the criticisms to cognacy-based approaches, there remains some potential that the lexical cognacy may provide some useful data to supplement cladistic hypotheses as part of an overall assessment of the complete bundle of available isoglosses. If lexical cognacy judgements can be treated as a potential source of data for cladistic hypotheses, how can they be implemented in a methodologically rigorous way? This chapter focuses on case studies from methodological issues that have arisen in encoding Indo-European lexical cognacy data on the Indo-European Cognate Relationships (IE-CoR) database project based at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. These issues are illustrated through case studies from problems that have arisen in assigning cognacy coding to lexical data. As such this chapter contributes discussion for improving the reliability of cognacy data for cladistic analyses as a supplement to more traditional analyses based on comparative phonological and morphological criteria.
Cf. the whole issue of Teiresias 47.1 Open Access @ http://www.teiresias-journal.org/