Niels Schoubben

Leiden University, Leiden University Centre for Linguistics, Post-Doc

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Currently, I am a postdoctoral researcher at Leiden University, where I am part of the ERC project “The Silk Road Language Web” (PI: Michaël Peyrot). Before this, I wrote my doctoral dissertation on “Traces of language contact in Niya Prakrit: Bactrian and other foreign elements”, also at Leiden University. Having a background in classics, Indology, and comparative philology, I study South and Central Asian languages and texts dating to the first millennium before and after the start of the common era. The languages I like to approach from the perspective of contact linguistics and historical (socio)linguistics; the texts I study with traditional philological methods. During the past years, Gāndhārī and Bactrian have been the languages that played the most prominent part in my research. For my postdoctoral research, I am additionally working on Khotanese and Tocharian, in particular on the Gāndhārī loanwords found in these languages. My academic interests extend, however, beyond the purely linguistic to also include Indian religions and literature; textual criticism as applied to Greek grammatical treatises; and the history of 19th- and 20th-century philological scholarship.

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Thesis Chapters by Niels Schoubben

DIAL/RINGUISTICS Τhe opposition between /l/ and /r/ in the diasystem of Vedic Sanskrit. A study in diachronic linguistics, dialectology and sociolinguistics.

2019

In this thesis, the long-standing problem in Indo-Iranian linguistics whether or not to reconst... more In this thesis, the long-standing problem in Indo-Iranian linguistics whether or not to reconstruct a phoneme /l/ for Proto-Indo-Iranian is examined in detail. After a brief status quaestionis, the etymology of all words with a phoneme /l/ in Ṛgvedic Sanskrit is scrutinized to see which words are likely borrowed from substratum languages and which go back to Proto-Indo-Iranian. Secondly, the problem is studied from a synchronic perspective. On the basis of the distribution of /l/ and /r/ in the different books of the Ṛgveda, it is argued that both diachronic and diatopic factors play a role, i.e. that generally speaking later books and books written in more eastern parts of India have a higher frequency of words with /l/. Finally, the diastratic component is taken into consideration as it is shown on the basis of a semantic analysis and with attention to female speech that /l/ was part of the lower registers of Vedic Sanskrit. This evidence combined, it is argued in the conclusion that /l/ gradually lost its function as a phoneme in Proto-Indo-Iranian, a process that was completed in Old Iranian and Mitanni Indo-Aryan with the complete loss of a phoneme /l/. This, however, was interrupted in Old Indo-Aryan, due to a profound influx of substratum words with the phoneme /l/.
As it will be used for further research, the thesis is not available in open access. In case you are interested in it for personal use, please contact me.

MULTA TULI IN HOMER, HESIOD AND THE HYMNS Τhe functional synonymy of ἄλγος, κῆδος & πῆμα as expressions of sorrow in Epic Greek

This thesis examines in detail the functional synonymy of three Homeric words for sorrow, i.e. ἄλ... more This thesis examines in detail the functional synonymy of three Homeric words for sorrow, i.e. ἄλγος, κῆδος and πῆμα. In contrast with earlier treatments of the topic who either start from a metrical (Witte) or a purely semantic approach (Mawet, Rijksbaron), it is argued here that one has to combine both approaches for a fuller understanding of the functioning of these lexemes within the context of the Homeric Kunstsprache. ἄλγος is interpreted on the basis of a semantic and morphosyntactic analysis as the solitary tribulations mankind has to face during his/her lifetime, whereas κῆδος rather emphasizes the affective component of suffering and indicates a more abstract suffering. πῆμα, finally, refers to the concrete ‘source of sorrow’ and, hence, can be seen as the cause of ἄλγος and κῆδος. It is, however, necessary to keep in mind that metrical considerations sometimes oblige traditional singers to adapt this basic difference in meaning, a process that is fully studied in the third and final chapter of this paper.

Niels Schoubben

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