Indo-European Linguistics

Languages, like genes, provide vital clues about human history. The origin of the Indo-European language family is ``the most intensively studied, yet still most recalcitrant, problem of historical linguistics''. Numerous genetic studies of Indo-European origins have also produced inconclusive results. Here we analyse linguistic data using computational methods derived from evolutionary biology. We test two theories of Indo-European origin: the `Kurgan expansion' and the `Anatolian farming' hypotheses. The Kurgan theory centres on possible archaeological evidence for an expansion into Europe and the Near East by Kurgan horsemen beginning in the sixth millennium BP. In contrast, the Anatolian theory claims that Indo-European languages expanded with the spread of agriculture from Anatolia around 8,000-9,500 years BP. In striking agreement with the Anatolian hypothesis, our analysis of a matrix of 87 languages with 2,449 lexical items produced an estimated age range for the initial Indo-European divergence of between 7,800 and 9,800 years BP. These results were robust to changes in coding procedures, calibration points, rooting of the trees and priors in the bayesian analysis.

The etymology of the term rune is assessed in light of recent developments in comparative linguistic study. Several proposals for the etymology of rune are not consistent with recent comparative understandings. Rather than magico-religious expressions, runes are better seen primarily as instruments of communication. The term rune has clear cognates in Celtic and Baltic which indicate an underlying meaning 'counsel'.

Yerevan Armenian is a variety of Eastern Armenian with a three-way voicing contrast that includes voiced, voiceless unaspirated, and voiceless aspirated stops, but previous work has not converged on a description of how voice quality is involved in the contrast. We demonstrate how voice quality can be assessed in a two-dimensional acoustic space using a spectral tilt measure in conjunction with a measure of spectral noise. Eight speakers produced a list of words with prevocalic word-initial and postvocalic word-final plosives. The results suggest that Yerevan Armenian has breathy-voiced plosives which are produced with closure voicing and a relatively spread glottis that is maintained into a following vowel. These qualitatively differ from some Indic ones in that they do not have an extended interval of voiced aspiration after the closure. For the voiceless unaspirated plosives, most speakers produced acoustically modal voiceless plosives, although two showed evidence for some glottal constriction and tensing. Many acoustic cues contribute to overall reliable discriminability of the three-way contrast in both initial and final position. Nevertheless, closure voicing intensity and aspiration duration together provide a robust separation of the three categories in both positions. We also find that back vowels are fronted after the breathy-voiced plosives, which supports a historical analysis in which early Armenian voiced stops were also breathy, rather than plain voiced.

This paper aims to demonstrate that the development of Pre-Slavic clusters plosive + t/s in later Common Slavic followed the trajectory of spirantiza-tion and subsequent lenition and not the trajectory of gemination, contrary to the prevailing view.

The paper deals with two Germanic sound changes which are traditionally believed to postdate the disintegration of the Proto-Germanic parent language. The lengthening in several monosyllables, attested in West Germanic languages, is usually believed to be an innovation of this branch. The so-called Gothic breaking is similarly thought of as belonging exclusively to East Germanic. The paper shows that there is evidence suggesting a Proto-Germanic age for parts of both sound changes, in particular for a lengthening in monosyllabic words ending in PGmc *-r and for a lowering of PGmc *i if followed by *r.
Proto-Germanic possessed at least three pronoun-based place adverbs formed with PGmc *-r, cf. Goth ƕar ‘where’ from ƕa- ‘what’, þar ‘there’ from þa- ‘that’ and hēr ‘here’ from hi- ‘this here’. The vocalism of these adverbs did not match that of the corresponding pronouns in two points. First, the vowels of the adverbs were probably long. Second, the close PGmc * (Goth ē, OHG ia) of ‘here’ did not match PGmc *i in the corresponding pronoun. The paper assumes that the long vowels of the place adverbs emerged by a lengthening of etymologically short vowels in monosyllablic words ending in PGmc *-r. The timbre difference between PGmc * in ‘here’ and PGmc *i in the corresponding pronoun for ‘this here’ is accounted for by a lowering of PGmc *i before *r. Both postulated developments must have been operating already in Proto-Germanic times but the lowering must have chronologically preceded the lengthening. The paper introduces the data supporting the assumptions made and discusses the apparent counterevidence.

The complex and cross-linguistically uncommon phonological phenomenon of "emphasis" is best known from Central Semitic languages such as Arabic and Aramaic. It is, however, found to varying degrees in a number of non-Semitic languages in contact with Arabic. This paper describes how in Kumzari, an Indo-European language spoken around the Strait of Hormuz, uvular-pharyngeal emphasis has arisen through language contact and has proliferated through language-internal processes. Beginning with the retention of emphatic consonants in a direct, extensive lexification by Arabic dating back at least 1300 years, emphasis has progressively penetrated the language by means of lexical innovations and two types of sound changes in both borrowed and inherited vocabulary: (i) analogical spread of emphasis onto plain but potentially emphatic consonants; and (ii) a sound change in which z has been invariably recast as an emphatic ẓ with no plain counterpart. The role of the back consonants w, x, q and ḥ, which induce emphasis on potentially emphatic consonants in diachronic processes but not synchronically, highlights the unique way in which this complex phenomenon operates in one non-Semitic language in contact with Arabic.

Syntactic reconstruction has virtually been outlawed in historical-comparative research for a long time, more or less ever since Watkins’ (1964, 1976) influential work on the problems of reconstructing word order for Proto-Indo-European. Recently, through the emergence of Construction Grammar, where complex syntactic structures are regarded as form–function pairings, a resurgence of syntactic reconstruction is made possible, as complex syntactic structures become a legitimate object of the Comparative Method. Given the legitimacy of syntactic reconstruction, and hence the possible reconstruction of argument structure constructions (Barðdal & Eythórsson 2011, Eythórsson & Barðdal 2011, Barðdal 2012), a major question arises as to whether also grammatical relations are reconstructable for earlier undocumented language periods. We argue that if the constructions singling out grammatical relations can be reconstructed for a proto-branch, the grammatical relations following from these are also reconstructable for that proto-branch. In order to illustrate our methodology, we show how a reconstruction of the subject function in Proto-Germanic may be carried out, more specifically of oblique subjects predicates like ‘hunger’, ‘thirst’ and ‘lust’ and others, based on the subject properties found in the earliest Germanic daughter languages.

Indo-Europeanists have traditionally reconstructed for ProtoIndo-European (PIE) a system of stops consisting of two voiced members (Idl and ldhl) and either one or two voiceless (Itl or Itl and Ithl). For those who posit a three-stop system ItI, Idl, and ldhl, the problem of typological improbability presents itself, for a typologically plausible triple stop system should have only one voiced stop. In this paper, two main points are made: (1) the voiced aspirates should be regarded as partially voiced (murmured) rather than as aspirated or tense, and (2) the supposed 'plain voiced' stops (Idl, etc.) show many of the typological characteristics of glottalized stops (ejectives), e.g. they are excluded from inflectional affixes, they may not co-occur with one another in the same root, etc. Combining these two observations, we may

We argue that subject-like obliques of the impersonal construction show behavioral properties of syntactic subjects in Old Germanic, contrary to standard assumptions (Cole et al. 1980). Subject tests, including control infinitives, reveal that subject-like obliques in Old and Early Middle English, Old Swedish, and Old Norse-Icelandic exhibit behavioral properties of subjects, as they do in Modern Icelandic and Faroese. We also present new data from Modern German, illustrating the same syntactic behavior of corresponding arguments in that language. Thus, we conclude that subject-like obliques exhibit behavioral properties of syntactic subjects from the earliest attested Germanic period onwards. Our findings contradict the standard view that these arguments were objects, which gradually acquired subject properties. We show that data from Gothic intended to support the standard view has been misinterpreted. Given the validity of our findings there are no grounds for reconstructing a stage at which subject-like obliques were objects in Germanic.

OLat. simītū 'at the same time' is traditionally interpreted as abl. sg. (originally instr. sg.) of a compound, with first member *sem-'one' and second member *eitu-(< PIE *h 1 éi-tu-'going'), thus 'with/at a single go'. The semantics are impeccable, but formal considerations suggest rather a univerbation of a phrase (pre-Lat.) *semi eitū(d) or *seme eitū(d) 'id.', whence (with elision and univerbation) *sem'eitū(d) and eventually simītū. If correct, this would provide a rare instance of inflected *sem-'one' (cf. univerbated *smih 2 ǵh(e)slih 2 > mīlia 'thousands'), otherwise eclipsed by *(h 1 )oi-no-. For the late variant simītur (largely neglected in the literature), the claimed source in abl. sg. *simītūd (with treatment as in OLat. APVR, ARFVISE, etc.) cannot be correct; Lindsay's now-forgotten explanation based on 3sg. passive ītur is preferable, and can be elucidated further. The entirely neglected inscriptional form SEIMITVM (with metrically guaranteed light first syllable) may reflect yet another -and possibly earlier -variant, perhaps a univerbation of acc. sg. *semem eitum (> *sem'eitum > /simītum/) beside the abl. sg. phrase underlying simītū, cf. adverbial pairs like prīmum beside prīmō. The Celtic material sometimes compared with Lat. simītū is problematic, and does not authorize an Italo-Celtic prototype, at least stricto sensu. 1 Nearly always in iambic or trochaic passages; in cantica only Mos. 792, Tri. 223 (both in bacchiacs, not surprisingly, given the metrical shape of the word). Four additional attestations listed by Lodge (1933:651, s.v.), three of them in cantica (all in non-bacchiac rhythm), are no longer accepted in modern editions. (The instance at Am. 631, in a passage that may be interpolated, is discussed below.) 2 1011 Marx (= 1092 Warmington, 1108 Krenkel); less certainly 315 Warmington (following Mueller) ex coniectura (hexameter line-end … calda simeitu), vs. 268 Marx (line-initial calda siem …, followed by Krenkel [269] and Charpin [VII.3]; codd. caldais seme). 3 trag. 79 Ribb. = 42 Warmington, 232 Dangel, ex coniectura (codd. simeta); Klotz (1953:203) prefers Buecheler's conjecture sim ita. (In defense of the metrical irregularity that would be introduced by simītū here: Dangel 1995:369.)

This paper aims to ascertain the place of the Ukrainian linguist
Oleksandr Popov (1855–80) in the history of Indo-European and
typological studies. Remaining largely unknown in the west, Popov left
a trailblazing contribution to the reconstruction of IE noun inflection.
Critical of Curtius’ approach nourished by the idea of linguistic
absolutism, Popov offered a systematic analysis of the accusative,
nominative, and vocative cases taken in their interdependency. In
view of the interchangeability of the independent accusative and
the independent nominative, Popov argued that the accusative
case might have emerged before the vocative and even prior to the
nominative, with a possibility of the nominative arising before the
accusative. The Ukrainian linguist based his reconstruction on the
distinction between the ‘active’ and ‘passive’ entities encoded by
the nominative in *-s and the accusative in *-m respectively, thus
anticipating discussion of the active typology of Proto-IE in the
20th century. By providing a detailed survey of Popov’s theory, the
author highlights its pioneering character in the light of modern
comparative-historical and typological views.

According to Bakker, the Homeric augment was a morpheme of proximal deixis. This theory can be confirmed in two contexts: similes, where the coexistence of present indicatives and augmented aorists can be explained only by considering the category of aspect, not the one of tense; and contexts involving the adjective νήπιος, which are here explained not only from a narrative viewpoint, but also by considering the major presence of augmented forms in them. The PIE augment seems to have been a deictic particle not compatible with present tense, and it might have been initially used only with aorists and later extended to imperfects, as foregrounding is strongly related to perfectivity.

The Ancient Greek perfect tense poses an interesting empirical puzzle
involving reduplication. While consonant-initial roots display a phonologically
regular alternation based on cluster type, vowel-initial roots
display two distinct patterns whose distribution is not phonologically
predictable. The reduplicative grammar that generates the consonantinitial
patterns is directly compatible with the productive vowel-initial
pattern, vowel lengthening. The minority vowel-initial pattern, ‘‘Attic
reduplication,’’ both its shape and its distribution, can be explained
as a phonotactic repair that operated at a prior stage of the language.
This pattern was later reanalyzed, such that Attic reduplication is retained
not as a phonotactic repair but through lexical indexation.

According to the so-called 'Prosodic Change Hypothesis', sound change on the level of segments may be irregular if it is caused by a change in prosodic features of units to which the relevant segments belong. The hypothesis provides a theoretical interpretation to the well-known fact that some instances of sound change abound in what appears to be unexplainable exceptions. The present talk attempts to defend the more traditional, strictly Neogrammarian view of sound change as a factor not allowing for unmotivated bifurcations. The argumentation consists of two parts. First, I will try to demonstrate that separation of prosodically motivated segmental changes is not the only possible way of interpreting the data. Second, I will address the question why sound changes with an obvious background in prosody often generate the impression of irregularity. I will show that this impression typically emerges due to the following two factors: (a) similar changes with different conditioning in closely related languages or dialects of one language; (b) lack of information on prosody, which is typical for early stages of languages.

Cet article prend pour point de départ une théorie phonologique récente concernant l’origine de l’accentuation des monosyllabes, qui a été avancée par Thomas Olander : selon celle-ci, les monosyllabes qui seraient terminés par deux consonnes en proto-grec (plus précisément, à une époque où la simplification de /ts/ en /s/ ne s’était pas encore effectuée) auraient un accent aigu en attique, tandis que ceux qui seraient terminés par moins de deux consonnes en proto-grec auraient un accent circonflexe. Après avoir montré les difficultés posées par cette théorie phonologique, cet article essaie de montrer qu’il faut lui préférer une théorie morphologique, et plus particulièrement analogique, qui se trouve dans la continuité de certains travaux de Jerzy Kuryłowicz.

In PIE, quality modifiers were expressed by stative verbs and nominal epithets, rather than by special adjectival lexemes. Adjectives did not form a separate lexical class. This made the encoding of the NP constituency less explicit. If we consider what I suggest calling “second-generation IE languages” we can observe a general tendency to create new, more explicit morphological means of dependency marking within a NP. The exact outcomes of this diachronic process vary from one language to another. However, if we parametrise the variation, a common pattern becomes clearly observable. In all the languages analysed in the present paper, there is a pronoun undergoing grammaticalisation as a dependency marker. What varies is (1) the position of this element with respect to the nominal base (pre- vs. postposed); (2) the degree of agglutination (bound morpheme vs. clitic vs. free morpheme); and (3) the locus of marking (head vs. modifier vs. double or alternant marking); (4) the source morpheme that undergoes grammaticalisation (relative vs. demonstrative pronoun).

The main aim of this paper is to demonstrate the value of markedness-based morphosyntactic typology for historical linguistics. This has been called into doubt, mainly or entirely on the basis of objections to an over-reliance upon Greenberg's basic order typology in some recent historical work. Although their (largely well founded) arguments have been directed against uses of that typology in particular, they have tended to
conclude by throwing out, along with the Greenbergian bathwater, such babies as 'the typological approach' or 'markedness' in general. I will argue against this by showing how a quite different typology - Silverstein's (1976) typology of case-marking systems - can be profitably applied to reconstruction. In particular, I will examine various competing
hypotheses about Proto-Indo-European (PIE) ergativity in light of this typology, and show how this has made it possible to settle some issues which had been debated by Indo-Europeanists for nearly a century on the basis of
inconclusive IE-internal evidence and false assumptions concerning ergative languages.

Published in: Transactions of the Philological Society 113 (2015), p. 38-52. This paper discusses the occurrence of reduplicated demonstrative pronouns in the older Indo-European languages and analyses their usage in the light of general linguistic insights into reduplication and demonstrative pronouns. The main aim is to find out whether the attested and reconstructed reduplicated demonstratives were inherited from Proto-Indo-European or arose at a later stage in the individual branches. I will discuss evidence from Sanskrit, Ancient Greek, the ancient Italic languages (Latin and the Sabellic branch), and the Celtic languages.

The last four decades have seen huge progress in the description and analysis of cross-linguistic diversity in the encoding of motion (Talmy 1985, 1991, Slobin 1996, 2004). Comparisons between satellite-framed and verb-framed languages suggest that satellite-framed languages typically have a larger manner of motion verb lexicon (swim, dash), while verb-framed languages typically have a larger path of motion verb lexicon (enter, cross) (Slobin 2004, Verkerk 2013, 2014b). This paper investigates how differences between the motion verb lexicons of satellite-framed and verb-framed languages emerge. Phylogenetic comparative methods adopted from biology and an etymological study are used to investigate manner verb lexicons and path verb lexicons in an Indo-European dataset. I show that manner verbs and path verbs typically have different types of etymological origins and that manner verbs emerge faster in satellite-framed subgroups, while path verbs emerge faster in verb-framed subgroups.

This article puts forth a comprehensive set of etymologies for "fire" words in the Germanic languages that descend from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) + péh 2 -u r . I propose that all relevant cognates are derived from the PIE holokinetic inflection, that is, + ph 2 -u r (nominativeaccusative) ~ + ph 2 -un-(oblique), and that all variants in the Germanic languages arose as a result of analogical changes in the Proto-Germanic and later periods. Furthermore, these etymologies cast doubt on reconstructions that require the positing of + in Proto-Germanic or Proto-Indo-European. In addition to providing cause to review existing reconstructions, this article also provides a closer philological view of the evidence of cognates in Germanic.

In the course of his painstaking study of ancient verse, Ferdinand de Saussure came up with an intriguing theory about the phonetics of the poetry he scanned. He postulated that the “jeux phoniques” he detected in the texts he analysed was proof that their authors were attempting to “parasite” the surface level meaning of their verse with a “hypotexte”. This hypotexte consisted of “anagrams” of “mots thèmes” whose phonetic properties were “isosyllabically diffracted” throughout the rest of the host text.
Today it is generally accepted that Saussure was wrong about this. Few however maintain that what he discerned in the phonetic depths of the verse he auscultated was no more than the figment of a fertile imagination. But if this be so, what exactly had he detected?
This paper maintains that what Saussure stumbled upon was the trace of a contribution made to ancient verse by melodically and metrically organised sounds. This was inevitable. Virtually all the texts he probed were “carmina sacra” that were composed to be sung and accompanied by music. This musical accompaniment had a decisive impact on the phonetics of the “lexemic” words in the Poetry that has survived. This is so because sung verse cannot “euphoniously” accommodate a musical accompaniment unless its phonetics constituents are selected, concatenated and intoned in such a way as to follow the melodic contours and rhythm patterns that modulate their articulation. In addition, the point of making verse consist both of melodically organised arrangements of sound and of organisations of sound in which one can recognise ordinary words was not simply ornamental. The real point was to bi nature what one was hearing. In other words, the goal was to “over-signify” the usual meanings of the “logocentric” words in the verse with a separate but complementary meaning and narrative encoded in melodised tones and metered rhythms. Why qualify the accompanying music as “acousmatic voices”? Because the music in question was added to song to give a voice to whichever tutelary divinity the song was performed to honour.
That’s what makes “acousmatic voices” an especially apt epithet for characterising the melodically and rhythmically structured bodies of sound Saussure so presciently discerned in the phonetic depths of the poésie phonissante he probed. The point of their being in poetry was to give a voice to the agencies to whom the object or occasion of verse is beholden for its Being-in-the-world.

This dissertation investigates the evidence for verb movement at the earliest stages of the Germanic languages. It is argued that already in the oldest documents of Germanic there are cases which must involve movement of the finite verb from the Verb Phrase to a functional head position higher up in the hierarchical structure. In a well-defined set of cases this is the Complementizer (C) position, but in other cases an IP-internal functional head position seems more likely as a landing-site for the verb. Moreover, it is argued that whereas in Gothic and Old English the verb does not move to C when complements are topicalized, in the other old Germanic languages, Old Norse, Old High German, and Old Saxon, V–to–C movement is obligatory in topicalizations. An examination of the runic inscriptions reveals that topicalized complements triggered movement of the verb to C already at the earliest stage in the northern part of the Germanic linguistic area.

Suppletion is typically conceived of in diachronic terms as a discontinuous phenomenon, by which two or more originally distinct lexical items come to share slots in a single paradigm. However, it has long been known that regular sound change acting undisturbed over long periods of time can in fact give rise to what in synchronic terms must be considered suppletive stem relationships. It is proposed, on the basis of examples from ancient and modern Indo-European languages, that instances of suppletion with a morphosyntactically unmotivated distribution are more likely to have arisen by the accretion of sound change than those which neatly contrast morphosyntactic categories such as singular vs. plural, which typically result from merger of two or more lexemes. Supporting this view is the phonological origin of several well-known cases of morphomic alternations, which can serve as a gateway for the introduction of suppletive stems. However, this hypothesis is to be understood only as a general tendency, since the distribution of stems in phonological suppletion may be altered by irregular morphological developments.

The paper addresses the reconstruction of the Indo-European verbal derivational category that is conventionally called ‘ē-statives’ can be illustrated by Lat. sen-ē-re ‘to be old’ or tac-ē-re ‘to be silent’. Its empirical contribution consists in tracing the Old Indicreflexes of ‘ē-statives’, which have not been systematically investigated up to now. The analysis of the new data is conducive to the conclusion that that the Indo-European stative suffix *-eh1-i̯e/o- was originally typical of denominative verbs belonging to the Caland System. Its subsequent spread to primary verbs was implemented indifferent ways in individual ancient Indo-European languages, and therefore need not be projected into Proto-Indo-European.

By using Jakobson’s (1960: 127-130) criteria for determining the nursery-word sta-tus of a given lexeme, I argue in this article that, even if we should no longer re-gard PG *aiþīn-/-ōn- ‘mother’ (Goth. aiþei), *aiþma- ‘daughter’s husband’ and *faþōn- ‘father’s sister’ as nursery words or hypocorisms (Hansen 2017: 207-220), we should certainly still do so with PG *ammōn- ‘parent’s mother; wet nurse’, *attan- ‘father’ (Goth. atta), *basōn- ‘father’s sister’ and *mōnōn-/mōmōn- ‘moth-er; mother’s sister’.

Dans l’étude qui va suivre, on propose une nouvelle analyse morphologique du nom indo-européen de l’hôte (i.e. *ghós-ti-). La doctrine commune, qui a passé en dogme, se contente d’en rapprocher la racine i.-e. *ghes- « manger » (véd. GHAS- « dévorer »), sans autre forme de procès: le *ghós-ti- serait un « commensal », mais le vocalisme o est étonnant, et le détail de la formation ne se laisse pas préciser. De plus, il n’est pas facile de justifier la valeur de réciprocité qu’on surprend dans le lat. hospes m. « invité / invitant », et qui se prolonge dans le fr. hôte: « celui qui accueille » (emprunté par l’ang. host) et « celui qui est accueilli » (= ang. guest). Cet étymon i.-e. *ghós-ti- pourrait s’expliquer comme le singulatif secondaire d’un collectif *ghós-t-ōy f. « tablée, ensemble des convives » (l’hôte et ses invités), lui-même étant fondé sur un acrostatique *ghós-t- f. « action de manger, repas ».

Towards the end of his career, August Schleicher (1821–1868), the great consolidator of Indo-European historical-comparative linguistics in the mid-19th century, famously drew explicit parallels between linguistics and the new evolutionary theory of Darwinism. Based on this, it has become customary in linguistic historiography to refer to Schleicher’s ‘Darwinian’ theory of language, even though it has long been established that Schleicher’s views have other origins that pre-date his contact with Darwinism. For his contemporary critics in Germany, however, Schleicher’s thinking was an example not of Darwinism but of ‘materialism’. This article examines what ‘materialism’ meant in 19th-century Germany — its philosophical as well as its political dimensions — and looks at why Schleicher’s critics applied this label to him. It analyses the relevant aspects of Schleicher’s linguistics and philosophy of science and the criticisms directed against them by H. Steinthal (1823–1899). It then discusses the contemporary movement of scientific materialism and shows how Schleicher’s political views, social background and personal experiences bound him to this movement.

"A Historical Phonology of the Slovene Language (= Historical Phonology of the Slavic Languages, Bd. 13). Heidelberg: C. Winter Universitätsverlag. ISBN 978-3-8253-1097-4. AATSEEL Best Book in Linguistics 2002:
Marc L. Greenberg. A Historical Phonology of the Slovene Language. Heidelberg, DE: Universitatsverlag C. Winter, 2000.
Professor Greenberg's monograph, A Historical Phonology of the Slovene Language, is a major contribution to the Carl Winter series in Slavic historical linguistics and an outstanding work of Slavic dialectology. On the basis of new language data and carefully constructed linguistic arguments, it presents a new interpretation of historical language change in Slovene and the development of its complex and diverse variants. The book is noteworthy for the author's command of the material, meticulous analysis, and quality of argumentation. It is a major advance in our understanding of this important, but often neglected, Slavic linguistic area."

The boar-shaped tessera from Uxama (K.23.2), long held to be a tessera hospitalis, may be a limitatio involving three Celtiberian cities, Uxama, Tarvodurum and Paesae, to be identified with Kaiseza Bais on coins. It is claimed that Celtiberian possessed a fem. pl. instrumental in -ais which is as innovative as its Italic and Greek counterparts. A comparison of ANTOS with atos/atom in Vercelli is established.

It is argued that Latin prōsāpia ‘lineage, stock’ together with sōpiō, -ōnis ‘penis’ goes back to the verbal root found in Vedic sāpáyati ‘to strike’, Ossetic safyn (I.), isafun (D.) ‘to destroy’, Hittite šap(p)- ‘to hit’ and Greek ἰάπτειν ‘to hurt’. The root can be reconstructed as *seh₂p- (aor. *seh₂p- > Hittite šapp-, pres. *si-s(e)h₂p- > Greek ἰάπτω). This root with the basic meaning ‘to hit, to strike’ was also employed metaphorically in the meaning ‘to have sexual intercourse’ which survives in Latin and Iranian (e.g. Balochi šāpag ‘to mount ewe’).

Differential marking of Goal and Source is a relatively underresearched topic. Available cross-linguistic evidence points toward two possible triggers of differential marking of spatial relations, that is, nouns that denote spatial regions and animate nouns. In this paper, differential Goal and differential marking are studied on the evidence of a diachronic corpus, consisting of the Homeric poems and Herodotus " Histories. In Homeric Greek, differential marking with nouns that denote spatial regions is available to a marginal extent for Goal, and unavailable for Source, while no differential marking occurs in Herodotus. Animacy conditioned differential marking is well attested both for Goal and for Source in Herodotus, but Homer offers evidence only for differential marking of Source. Apparently, Goal prepositions used for inanimate landmarks are also compatible with animates, while Source prepositions developed at an early stage animacy conditioned meanings that make them unsuitable for indicating simple concrete motion away from a human being.

Our reconstructed Common Slavonic forms are generally supposed to be realistic to acertain degree; that is to say, our notation should tell us something about the ancient phonological structure of these words, as well as about the whole system of phonological oppositions in CS. Although the exact pronunciations must remain beyond the rcach of our methods, it is definitely not interesting only to consider the reconstructions as handy formulae for expressing the regular correspondences between related Slavonic words.  Obviously, if our reconstructions are not realistic, they cannot be used to explain why the words in question later changed the way they did.

This paper presents a spatio-temporal data mining regarding the origin of the names of the 218 longest European rivers. The study shows that 35.2% of these river names originate in the Near East and Southern Caucasus. The study also investigates the origin of European mountain names. It is shown that at least 26 mountain names originate from Africa.