PALaC Wiki - User contributions [en]

Paradigmatic relation

2025-06-06T16:08:05Z

Admin: Created page with "==Translations== paradigmatische Beziehung | relation paradigmatique | relazione paradigmatica ==Article== According to the theoretical framework of Saussure's structurali..."

==Translations==
paradigmatische Beziehung | relation paradigmatique | relazione paradigmatica

==Article==
According to the theoretical framework of Saussure's structuralim, a p. r. is a grouping of forms related by mutual exclusivity or complemetary distribution. Forms in the same paradigmatic class occur in the same context. For instance, attributive modifiers form a syntactic paradigmatic class. A plural and a singular ending for the same case form a morphological paradigmatic class. It is opposed to the concept of [[syntagmatic relationship]].

Morphological adaptation

2025-06-06T16:03:51Z

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==Translations==

adattamento morfologico | adaptation morphologique | morphologische Anpassung

==Article==
Like in the case of [[phonological adaptation]], morphological adaptation is one of the formal processes that affect a word when it is borrowed from a different language. Depending on its [[typological classification | morphological typology]], the [[target language]] will require the borrowed word to possess grammatical features that allow it to be morphosyntactically employed. Therefore, if a word is borrowed, e.g., by an inflected language, it will be assigned features that allow inflection under all required categories: it will receive a [[grammatical gender assignment (contact) | grammatical gender]] and, if different inflectional paradigms are available, it will also be included in an appropriate [[paradigmatic relation | paradigmatic]] series. Conversely, if a word if borrowed by an isolating language, its morphology would be deleted upon transfer to the target language.
Morphological adaptation is particularly interesting in the study of borrowing scenarios, because several languages tend to select specific classes to which they preferably assign loanwords. Furthermore, the way morphology is adapted can be indicative of the date of acquisition of a loanword, in case the diachrony of the target language involved a shift in its morphological system.

==Example==
In Bronze Age Anatolia, loanwords from Hurrian to Hittite were generally assigned either to the i-stem inflection (although gender is often difficult to ascertain because of the prevalence of dative-singular occurrences). This morphological selection was triggered by the frequency of Hurrian words that end with either a /i/ or a similar vocoid (see Giorgieri 2000, 198) and, quite importantly, it allows to distinguish direct Hurrian-Hittite loans from loans mediated by Luwian, because in the latter Luwian assigned neutral gender and dental it-stem to the loan (Giusfredi and Pisaniello 2020, 216-220).

==References==
Giorgieri, M. 2000. Schizzo grammaticale della lingua hurrica. Parola del Passato 55, 171-277. Giusfredi, F. and Pisaniello, V. 2020. Grammatical categories in contact. Gender assignment criteria in Hittite borrowings from the neighboring languages. In L. Repanšek, H. Bichelmeier and V. Sadovski, eds, vácāmsi miśrā krṇavāmahai Proceedings of the international conference of the Society for Indo-European Studies and IWoBA XII, Ljubljana 4–7 June 2019, celebrating one hundred years of [[language family | Indo-European]] comparative linguistics at the University of Ljubljana, Hamburg, pp. 209-233.

Morphological adaptation

2025-06-06T16:01:51Z

Admin:

==Translations==

adattamento morfologico | adaptation morphologique | morphologische Anpassung

==Article==
Like in the case of [[phonological adaptation]], morphological adaptation is one of the formal processes that affect a word when it is borrowed from a different language. Depending on its [[typological classification | morphological typology]], the [[target language]] will require the borrowed word to possess grammatical features that allow it to be morphosyntactically employed. Therefore, if a word is borrowed, e.g., by an inflected language, it will be assigned features that allow inflection under all required categories: it will receive a [[grammatical gender assignment (contact) | grammatical gender]] and, if different inflectional paradigms are available, it will also be included in an appropriate [[paradigmatic distribution | paradigmatic]] series. Conversely, if a word if borrowed by an isolating language, its morphology would be deleted upon transfer to the target language.
Morphological adaptation is particularly interesting in the study of borrowing scenarios, because several languages tend to select specific classes to which they preferably assign loanwords. Furthermore, the way morphology is adapted can be indicative of the date of acquisition of a loanword, in case the diachrony of the target language involved a shift in its morphological system.

==Example==
In Bronze Age Anatolia, loanwords from Hurrian to Hittite were generally assigned either to the i-stem inflection (although gender is often difficult to ascertain because of the prevalence of dative-singular occurrences). This morphological selection was triggered by the frequency of Hurrian words that end with either a /i/ or a similar vocoid (see Giorgieri 2000, 198) and, quite importantly, it allows to distinguish direct Hurrian-Hittite loans from loans mediated by Luwian, because in the latter Luwian assigned neutral gender and dental it-stem to the loan (Giusfredi and Pisaniello 2020, 216-220).

==References==
Giorgieri, M. 2000. Schizzo grammaticale della lingua hurrica. Parola del Passato 55, 171-277. Giusfredi, F. and Pisaniello, V. 2020. Grammatical categories in contact. Gender assignment criteria in Hittite borrowings from the neighboring languages. In L. Repanšek, H. Bichelmeier and V. Sadovski, eds, vácāmsi miśrā krṇavāmahai Proceedings of the international conference of the Society for Indo-European Studies and IWoBA XII, Ljubljana 4–7 June 2019, celebrating one hundred years of [[language family | Indo-European]] comparative linguistics at the University of Ljubljana, Hamburg, pp. 209-233.

Mixed-language

2024-01-30T14:29:35Z

Admin: /* Article */

==Article==
A mixed language is a language that results from the merger of two other languages. The phenomenon has been mostly observed in colonial scenarios during the early modern and modern ages, which resulted in the production of [[pidgin]] and [[creole]] languages (Cotticelli Kurras 2007).
In general, when two languages overlap for a long enough period of time, a mixed language is one of the possible outcomes. When this is indeed the case, generally the most prestigious language (in colonial areas, the language of the colonists) will lend the lexicon, while the grammatical structures will come from the local substrate (or substrata), although in several cases the situation can be more balanaced and less polarized. For a recent presentation, see Meakins and Stewart 2022.

==Example==
Most examples come from the modern world, while no clear example emerged in antiquity. To some extent, English could be seen as a mixed language, combining Germanic and Latin features through the influence of French, but it can be debated whether this characterization is methodologically correct.

==References==
Meakins F and Stewart J. Mixed Languages. In: Mufwene S, Escobar AM (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Language Contact: Volume 2. Cambridge, pp. 310-343.

Mixed-language

2024-01-30T14:28:56Z

Admin: Created page with "==Article== A mixed language is a language that results from the merger of two other languages. The phenomenon has been mostly observed in colonial scenarios during the ear..."

==Article==
A mixed language is a language that results from the merger of two other languages. The phenomenon has been mostly observed in colonial scenarios during the early modern and modern ages, which resulted in the production of pidgin and creole languages (Cotticelli Kurras 2007).
In general, when two languages overlap for a long enough period of time, a mixed language is one of the possible outcomes. When this is indeed the case, generally the most prestigious language (in colonial areas, the language of the colonists) will lend the lexicon, while the grammatical structures will come from the local substrate (or substrata), although in several cases the situation can be more balanaced and less polarized. For a recent presentation, see Meakins and Stewart 2022.

==Example==
Most examples come from the modern world, while no clear example emerged in antiquity. To some extent, English could be seen as a mixed language, combining Germanic and Latin features through the influence of French, but it can be debated whether this characterization is methodologically correct.

==References==
Meakins F and Stewart J. Mixed Languages. In: Mufwene S, Escobar AM (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Language Contact: Volume 2. Cambridge, pp. 310-343.

Semantic change

2024-01-29T13:56:38Z

Admin: Created page with "==Article== Semantic change is the change of the meaning of a linguistic sign, which happens over time. It may involve extension and reduction of the original semantics, as..."

==Article==
Semantic change is the change of the meaning of a linguistic sign, which happens over time. It may involve extension and reduction of the original semantics, as well more complex changes. Unlike [[phonetic change]], it is not systematic and, therefore, it is quite unpredictable and impervious to reconstruction.

Changes

2024-01-29T13:54:45Z

Admin: /* Article */

==Translations==
mutamento | changement linguistique | Sprachwandel

==Article==
By language change we indicate the diachronic change that occurs within a language. Change can be divided into two different types: language internal change (both systematic, as in the case of [[phonetic change]] by [[ | sound lawsound laws]], and unsystematic, as in the case of [[semantic change]]) and [[language contact|contact-induced change]].
Change should not be confused with [[variation]], which also represents a pattern of differentiation, but is defined synchronically and not diachronically.
When dealing with ancient corpus-languages, the disambiguation between language internal and contact-induced change is crucial, and depends on the successful identification of [[language contact]] in a location at a given stage.

Changes

2024-01-29T13:54:25Z

Admin:

==Translations==
mutamento | changement linguistique | Sprachwandel

==Article==
By language change we indicate the diachronic change that occurs within a language. Change can be divided into two different types: language internal change (both systematic, as in the case of [[phonetic change]] by [[ | sound lawsound laws]], and unsystematic, as in the case of [[s]]emantic change]]) and [[language contact|contact-induced change]].
Change should not be confused with [[variation]], which also represents a pattern of differentiation, but is defined synchronically and not diachronically.
When dealing with ancient corpus-languages, the disambiguation between language internal and contact-induced change is crucial, and depends on the successful identification of [[language contact]] in a location at a given stage.

Changes

2024-01-29T13:54:10Z

Admin: /* Article */

==Translations==
mutamento | changement linguistique | Sprachwandel

==Article==
By language change we indicate the diachronic change that occurs within a language. Change can be divided into two different types: language internal change (both systematic, as in the case of [[phonetic change]] by [[sound laws]], and unsystematic, as in the case of [[s]]emantic change]]) and [[language contact|contact-induced change]].
Change should not be confused with [[variation]], which also represents a pattern of differentiation, but is defined synchronically and not diachronically.
When dealing with ancient corpus-languages, the disambiguation between language internal and contact-induced change is crucial, and depends on the successful identification of [[language contact]] in a location at a given stage.

Phonetic change

2024-01-29T12:40:55Z

Admin:

==Article==

Phonetic change is the systematic substitution of a sound of a specific language in a specific context by another sound, which may result in alterations of the [[Structural layers | phonological system]]. In geeneral, it is described by means of a [[sound law]].

Phonetic change

2024-01-29T12:40:17Z

Admin: /* Article */

==Article==

P.c. is the systematic substitution of a sound of a specific language in a specific context by another sound, which may result in alterations of the [[Structural layers | phonological system]]. In geeneral, it is described by means of a [[sound law]].

Phonetic change

2024-01-29T12:40:05Z

Admin: /* Article */

==Article==

P.c. is the systemagtic substitution of a sound of a specific language in a specific context by another sound, which may result in alterations of the [[Structural layers | phonological system]]. In geeneral, it is described by means of a [[sound law]].

Phonetic change

2024-01-29T12:39:40Z

Admin: /* Article */

==Article==

P.c. is the systemagtic substitution of a sound of a specific language in a specific context by another sound, which may result in alterations of the [[Structural Layer | phonological system]]. In geeneral, it is described by means of a [[sound law]].

Phonetic change

2024-01-29T12:39:31Z

Admin: /* Article */

==Article==

P.c. is the systemagtic substitution of a sound of a specific language in a specific context by another sound, which may result in alterations of the [[Structural Layers | phonological system]]. In geeneral, it is described by means of a [[sound law]].

Phonetic change

2024-01-29T12:38:14Z

Admin: Created page with "===Article=== P.c. is the systemagtic substitution of a sound of a specific language in a specific context by another sound, which may result in alterations of the phonologic..."

===Article===

P.c. is the systemagtic substitution of a sound of a specific language in a specific context by another sound, which may result in alterations of the phonological system. In geeneral, it is described by means of a [[sound law]].

Sound law

2024-01-29T12:36:22Z

Admin: /* Article */

==Translations==
legge fonetica | loi de phonétique | Sprachgesetz

==Article==
Ever since the foundation of the comparative method in the late XIX century, a sound law has been defined as a descriptive principle that illustrates taxative diachronic [[phonetic change]] within a language (Cotticelli-Kurras 2007, 420). In other words, a given phoneme of a given language, when occurring in a specific context, will change in a predictable way. Examples in [[language family | Indo-European]] linguistics are numerous. In Anatolian, one could mention, for instance, the outcome of initial group *h2e in the passage from Indo-European to Hittite:
<blockquote>
*h2e > ha
</blockquote>

which is read as follows: every initial group *h2e of Indo-European will turn into initial ha- in Hittite. The initial position represents the context that triggers the change.
In contact scenarios, a successful identification of sound changes is of significance to establish the date of borrowings, as those that undergo a given change must have happened before the change occurred; those that do not, must have occurred after the law was fully applied.

==Example==
An example from the Ancient Near Eastern area in which the lack of application of a sound law helps pinpoint the date of a borrowing is offered by Hurrian historical phonology. At some point protohistorically, Hurrian eliminated initial /r/. Since alphabetic Hurrian contains an Akkadian loanword, riw (<re'u "shepherd"; Richter 2012, 437), and the initial /r/ was not eliminated, we may conclude that the borrowing occurred in historical times, after the relevant sound law had already stopped affecting the Hurrian lexicon.

==References==
Cotticelli-Kurras, F. 2007. Lessico di linguistica, Alessanrdia. Richter, T. 2012. BIbliographisches Glossar des Hurritischen, Wiesbaden.

Ancient Linguistic Area

2023-07-20T08:59:51Z

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==Translations==
Area linguistica (antica) | aire linguistique (ancienne) | Sprachenareal (im Altertum)

==Article==
The concept of linguistic area generally refers to a geographical region in which languages influences each other on the different levels of lexicon and grammar. As many such areas have been observed in the modern world, it is one of the most variable and blurry concepts both in linguistic and in cultural studies (see Matras 2009, 286-296, for discussion). To some extent, the concept seems to be interchangeable with that of “[[league| language league]]” (Sprachbund), while, on the other hand, this latter label often indicates a group of languages in a particularly intensive area of [[grammatical interference]], which is a rather uncommon case to observe when working on corpus languages.
In the environment of the ancient world, areas of intensive lexical exchange certainly existed (Anatolia, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Ancient Near East provide several examples). However, cases of long distance grammatical interference are not easily identified, nor was the existence of a proper [[mixed-language]] ever documented. Therefore, in the framework of reference employed by the PALaC project, a linguistic area is defined in a milder fashion as an area featuring one of the following:
# intensive exchange of linguistic material (lexical or grammatical);
# occasional shared structural traits that:
## are shared by the languages in the area;
## are not shared by other branches of the language family to which the involved languages belong, or other neighboring languages;
## are not typologically prevalent in a [[polygenetic change | polygenetic fashion]].

==Example==

A proposed linguistic area involving Anatolia is the Aegean-Anatolian one (for a history of studies see Bianconi 2021, 11-13), a hypothetical [[league | Bund]] that aims at explaining some controversial similarities between Greek and the languages of the Anatolian branch of [[language family | Indo-European]].
While several scholars, starting with Emmanuel Laroche in the 1970s, raised doubts about the existence of an area of intensive interference involving Greece and Anatolia, other examples exist that are less controversial. A good example is offered by the area of Southern Mesopotamia in the III millennium BCE, in which Sumerian probably influenced the phonology and the clause architecture of Akkadian (turning it into an unusual SOV language within the Semitic branch of [[language family | Afro-Asiatic]]; cf. Deutscher 2007, 20-21).

==References==
Bianconi, M. 2021. "There and back again": A Hundred Years of Graeco-Anatolian Comparative Studies. In: Linguistic and Cultural Interactions between Greece and Anatolia, Leiden, pp. 8-39; Deutscher, G. 2007. Syntactic Change in Akkadian The Evolution of Sentential Complementation, Oxford. Matras, Y. 2009. Language Contact, Cambridge.

Ancient Linguistic Area

2023-07-20T08:59:20Z

Admin:

==Translations==
Area linguistica (antica) | aire linguistique (ancienne) | Sprachenareal (im Altertum)

==Article==
The concept of linguistic area generally refers to a geographical region in which languages influences each other on the different levels of lexicon and grammar. As many such areas have been observed in the modern world, it is one of the most variable and blurry concepts both in linguistic and in cultural studies (see Matras 2009, 286-296, for discussion). To some extent, the concept seems to be interchangeable with that of “[[league| language league]]” (Sprachbund), while, on the other hand, this latter label often indicates a group of languages in a particularly intensive area of [[grammatical interference]], which is a rather uncommon case to observe when working on corpus languages.
In the environment of the ancient world, areas of intensive lexical exchange certainly existed (Anatolia, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Ancient Near East provide several examples). However, cases of long distance grammatical interference are not easily identified, nor was the existence of a proper [[mixed-language]] ever documented. Therefore, in the framework of reference employed by the PALaC project, a linguistic area is defined in a milder fashion as an area featuring one of the following:
# intensive exchange of linguistic material (lexical or grammatical);
# occasional shared structural traits that:
## are shared by the languages in the area;
## are not shared by other branches of the language family to which the involved languages belong, or other neighboring languages;
## are not typologically prevalent in a [[polygenetic change | polygenetic fashion]].

==Example==

A proposed linguistic area involving Anatolia is the Aegean-Anatolian one (for a history of studies see Bianconi 2021, 11-13), a hypothetical [[league | Bund]] that aims at explaining some controversial similarities between Greek and the languages of the Anatolian branch of [[language family | Indo-European]].
While several scholars, starting with Emmanuel Laroche in the 1970s, raised doubts about the existence of an area of intensive interference involving Greece and Anatolia, other examples exist that are less controversial. A good example is offered by the area of Southern Mesopotamia in the III millennium BCE, in which Sumerian probably influenced the phonology and the clause architecture of Akkadian (turning it into an unusual SOV language within the Semitic branch of [[language family || Afro-Asiatic]]; cf. Deutscher 2007, 20-21).

==References==
Bianconi, M. 2021. "There and back again": A Hundred Years of Graeco-Anatolian Comparative Studies. In: Linguistic and Cultural Interactions between Greece and Anatolia, Leiden, pp. 8-39; Deutscher, G. 2007. Syntactic Change in Akkadian The Evolution of Sentential Complementation, Oxford. Matras, Y. 2009. Language Contact, Cambridge.

Typological classification

2023-07-20T08:58:47Z

Admin:

==Translations==

classificazione tipologica | Typologie linguistique | Sprachtypologie

==Article==
A typological classification of languages entails grouping languages who shared similar features according to a specific structural criterion (cf. Croft 2002, 1-3). As such, it is opposed to genealogical classification, in that it studies and classifies similarities that do not depend on inheritance, but rather on universal or prevalent tendencies.
Typological criteria include the morphological one (which was the first to be discussed in scholarship, already in the XVIII century), the syntactic one, and the phonological one (although in principle other criteria may be employed as long as they provide effective and significant grouping).
Morphological typology describes the meaning-to-form ratio of [[morpheme | morphemes]], with the main types of languages being the inflected ones (grammatical morphemes may contain complex meanings), the agglutinative ones (one grammatical morpheme generally contains one semantic trait), the isolating ones (no form of grammatical inflection is present), and the polysynthetic ones (several lexical morphemes are merged in single word-sentences).
Syntactic typology describes the architecture of unmarked phrases or clauses, or, using a similar but equivalent definition, the parameter of head-complement directionality. Languages may have an Object-Verb order, or a Verb-Object order; a Preoposition-Noun order, or a Noun-Preposition order; etc. In general, languages in which the phrase head is final can be easily described as head final, and, based on Greenberg's [[implicational universal | implicational universals]], they would tend to feature a set of consistent structures (Object Verb, Noun Postposition, Modifier Noun); conversely, head initial languages will exhibit the opposite orders.
Phonological typology classifies languages based on some features of their [[phoneme | phonemic inventory]].
In situations of contact, the typological profile of one language may change due to the influence of another one. 

==Examples==
An example of contact-induced typological shift in the Ancient Near East is offered by the syntactic typology of Akkadian, which exhibits verb-final clauses, even though it has head-initial appositional phrases and head initial noun phrases. In general, Semitic languages are quite consistently VO languages, as shown in the following fictional example from Arabic and Hebrew:

<blockquote>

أكل الملك تفاحة
'akala al malik tufa'hatan

המלך אכל תפוח

hmlk akl tpvh
The king ate an apple
</blockquote>

as opposed to Akkadian:
<blockquote>
šarrum ḫašḫūram īkul
</blockquote>

This change was in all likelihood triggered by the influence of Sumerian (Deutscher 2007, 20-21).
In Anatolia, Goedegebuure (2008) proposed that a similar inconsistency in the VO-correlated structures of Hattian may have been due to the co-existence with one or more [[language family | Indo-European]] languages such as Hittite, Palaic and Luwian.

==References==
Croft, W. 2002. Typology and Universals, Cambridge. Deutscher, G. 2007. Syntactic Change in Akkadian The Evolution of Sentential Complementation, Oxford. Goedegebuure, P. 2008, Central Anatolian languages and language communities in the Colony period: A Luwian-Hattian symbiosis and the independent Hittites, in Jan G. Dercksen (ed.), Anatolia and the Jazira during the Old Assyrian period, Leiden, pp. 137-180.

Syntactic interference

2023-07-20T08:58:37Z

Admin:

==Translations==
interferenza sintattica | interférence syntaxique | syntaktische Interferenz

==Article==
Phenomenon induced by language contact, in which the syntactic structure of a target languages is modified, becoming structurally and [[typological classification|typologically similar]] to that of the model language.
The label can be employed for phenomena involving specific syntactic constructions, such as the position of a specific type of element within a phrase or a clause, but also for generalized alterations of the [[typological classification|syntactic typology]], as in the case of a head-initial language becoming head-final.
According to Thomason (2006), contact induced syntactic change belongs to the field of [[grammatical_interference|structural interference]] and - especially in those cases that do not involve the borrowings of morphemes but only the borrowing of structures - it is typical of [[substratum]]-[[superstratum]] systems or of intensively bilingual cultures.
When working on ancient corpora, it is extremely important not to immediately interpret syntactic aberrant patterns in texts as the result of proper syntactic interference between languages: in the case of [[multilingual_document|multilingual documents]], it is possible that syntactic mimicry depended on word by word or phrase by phrase translation, even in contexts in which no structural interference occurred between spoken languages in a given area. 

==Examples==
We provide two examples from the Ancient Near Eastern area.
As regards the replication of a specific syntactic pattern, we will consider the anina-clauses in Nuzi Akkadian. (Wilhelm 1970, 79-81), which reflect a structure borrowed from Hurrian relative clauses, in a scenario of language superposition: 
<blockquote>a-ni-na ṭup-pu ša KÙ.BABBAR ša a-na PN iš-ṭù-ru ù i-na-an-na i-na UD-mi an-ni-i ṭup-pu ša-a-šu eh-te-pì 
“Which tablet of gold I wrote for PN (= Once tablet of gold which for X I wrote), in this day this tablet I break” (Wilhelm, ibid.)</blockquote>

A second example, from the Anatolian area, is represented by the possible shift of Hattian from a more consistent VO syntactic typology to a mix of VO and OV features, by influence of the [[language family | Indo-European]] Anatolian languages (Goedegebuure 2008; this shift is, however, hypothetical, as typological universals are not infallible and we have no proof that Hattian was originally a consistent VO language).

==References==
Goedegebuure, P. (2008). CENTRAL ANATOLIAN LANGUAGES AND LANGUAGE COMMUNITIES IN THE COLONY PERIOD : A LUWIAN-HATTIAN SYMBIOSIS AND THE INDEPENDENT HITTITES. In: Anatolia and the Jazira during the Old Assyrian period, pp. 137-180;
Thomason, S. (2006) Language Change and Language Contact. Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics, pp.339-347;
Wilhelm, G. (1970). Untersuchungen zum Ḫurro-Akkadischen von Nuzi.

Ancient Linguistic Area

2023-07-20T08:58:24Z

Admin:

==Translations==
Area linguistica (antica) | aire linguistique (ancienne) | Sprachenareal (im Altertum)

==Article==
The concept of linguistic area generally refers to a geographical region in which languages influences each other on the different levels of lexicon and grammar. As many such areas have been observed in the modern world, it is one of the most variable and blurry concepts both in linguistic and in cultural studies (see Matras 2009, 286-296, for discussion). To some extent, the concept seems to be interchangeable with that of “[[league| language league]]” (Sprachbund), while, on the other hand, this latter label often indicates a group of languages in a particularly intensive area of [[grammatical interference]], which is a rather uncommon case to observe when working on corpus languages.
In the environment of the ancient world, areas of intensive lexical exchange certainly existed (Anatolia, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Ancient Near East provide several examples). However, cases of long distance grammatical interference are not easily identified, nor was the existence of a proper [[mixed-language]] ever documented. Therefore, in the framework of reference employed by the PALaC project, a linguistic area is defined in a milder fashion as an area featuring one of the following:
# intensive exchange of linguistic material (lexical or grammatical);
# occasional shared structural traits that:
## are shared by the languages in the area;
## are not shared by other branches of the language family to which the involved languages belong, or other neighboring languages;
## are not typologically prevalent in a [[polygenetic change | polygenetic fashion]].

==Example==

A proposed linguistic area involving Anatolia is the Aegean-Anatolian one (for a history of studies see Bianconi 2021, 11-13), a hypothetical [[league | Bund]] that aims at explaining some controversial similarities between Greek and the languages of the Anatolian branch of [[language family | Indo-European]].
While several scholars, starting with Emmanuel Laroche in the 1970s, raised doubts about the existence of an area of intensive interference involving Greece and Anatolia, other examples exist that are less controversial. A good example is offered by the area of Southern Mesopotamia in the III millennium BCE, in which Sumerian probably influenced the phonology and the clause architecture of Akkadian (turning it into an unusual SOV language within the Semitic branch of Afro-Asiatic; cf. Deutscher 2007, 20-21).

==References==
Bianconi, M. 2021. "There and back again": A Hundred Years of Graeco-Anatolian Comparative Studies. In: Linguistic and Cultural Interactions between Greece and Anatolia, Leiden, pp. 8-39; Deutscher, G. 2007. Syntactic Change in Akkadian The Evolution of Sentential Complementation, Oxford. Matras, Y. 2009. Language Contact, Cambridge.

Phonological interference

2023-07-20T08:58:13Z

Admin:

==Translations==
interferenza fonologica | interférence morphologique | phonologische Interferenz

==Article==
Phonological interference is a type of [[grammatical interference|structural interference]] that affects the [[phoneme | phonemic inventory]] of a language. The concept is explored already by Weinreich (1953, 14-28) in his seminal work on contact linguistics, as it is, intuitively, an easy kind of contact to identify and describe. Brière (1966) presented an articulated description of the formal and psychological features of the phenomenon, and studies on modern contact scenario have been authored ever since.
Identifying phonological interference in ancient areas is made difficult by the fact that the phonetic reality of the languages that only survive in written documents can only be reconstructed in a speculative fashion. There are, however, cases of obvious areal behavior in phonology, as for instance the satem-centum areal opposition within [[language family | Indo-European]].

==Example==
Examples range from cases of local interference to hypothetical cases of larger areas of [[convergence]].
As for the latter case, a classical example from the Anatolian area is the absence of initial /r/ in Hattian and Hurrian and in the Anatolian languages (Kammenhuber 1969, 267)) - which, however, would be more convincing if and only if a clarification of the processes that eliminated it in the different languages could be provided. Another one is the change of final /m/ to /n/ in Greek and in the languages of Anatolia (cf. Bianconi 2015, 139), which, however, is debatable as the trait emerges also in other Indo-European languages and is typologically trivial.
Cases of local interference between clearly identifiable idioms are generally less debatable. One is the assimilation of /n/ to /m/ before /p/ in Palaic, which, according to Goedegebuure (2008) could depend on contact with Hattian (Girbal 1986, 194-195). It should be noticed that the interference is not merely phonotactical, but it involves the introduction of an allophone of /b/, which makes it structurally phonological.

{| class="wikitable"
|Hittite||Palaic||Hattian
|-
|°an-p° e.g. in:||°am-p° e.g. in:||°am-p° e.g. in:
|-
|kissan =pat||=am =pi||am-pu
|-
|thus FOCUS||him.acc CONTRAST||do-PST1SG
|}


A less certain example of local interference regards Luwian-Hittite contact in the Late Hittite age. Words that would have contained an etymological /e/ vowel start being spelled with an /i/, probably by influence of the phonemic inventory of Luwian, which lacked the distinction. Interestingly, Yakubovich (2010: 218-231) observes that the opposite phenomenon also occurs: words with a regular /i/ are sometimes spelled with an /e/, in a form of "puristic" hypercorrection by Hittite scribes who tried to avoid the Luwianizing interference.

==References==
Bianconi, M. 2015. Contatti Greco-Anatolici e Sprachbund Egeo-Micrasiatico: stato della ricerca e nuove prospettive. Archivio Glottologico Italiano 2015/1, pp. 129-178.
Brière, E.J. 1966, An Investigation of Phonological Interference, in Language 52, pp. 768-796
Girbal, Ch. 1986, Beiträge zur Grammatik des Hattischen, Frankfurt am Main/Bern/New York.
Goedegebuure, P. 2008, Central Anatolian languages and language communities in the Colony period: A Luwian-Hattian symbiosis and the independent Hittites, in Jan G. Dercksen (ed.), Anatolia and the Jazira during the Old Assyrian period, Leiden, pp. 137-180
Kammenhuber A. 1969, Hattisch, in: Johannes Friedrich et al. (ed.), Altkleinasiatische Sprachen, Leiden/Köln, pp. 428-546.
Weinreich, U. 1953. Languages in contact (Publications of the Linguistic Circle of New York 1), New York.
Yakubovich, I. 2010, Sociolinguistics of the Luvian Language, Leiden.

Substratum

2023-07-20T08:58:04Z

Admin:

==Translations==
sostrato | substrat | Substrat

==Article==
Concept introduced by G.I. Ascoli in the 1860s, a linguistic substratum is an endemic language that, in a context of language superposition, influences an intrusive language called a [[superstratum]]. The seminal discussion by Ascoli opened the field to the concept of [[strata]], which, with several modifications and evolutions in the studies that followed, became a crucial model for the description of multilingual areas. Diachronically, the term substrate not only refers to the phenomena which appear as a result of superposition in the dominant language, but to the linguistic layer to which, in a given area, a dominant language has been superimposed, thereby resulting in cultural domination, which in turn could have been caused by economic, social, political or military factors.

==Example==
For corpus-languages, substrata are quite elusive and can only be identified basing on historical information about the demographics of specific areas. They tend to emerge in corpora as low-ranking codes as opposed to the standard scribal tradition of more prestigious superstrata (cf. Anderson and Vita 2016, who present three case studies from the Semitic and Hurrian environments).
An example from the Anatolian area is represented by the presence of grammatical mistakes in the Old Assyrian corpus from Kaneš that depend on interference from the Hittite morph-syntax, e.g. the lack of proper gender marking, as in:

<blockquote>
Šašalika (wife of Ni-ki-li-et) […] ašar libbi=šu (expected: libbi=ša) illak 
“Šašalika may go where (s)he wants” (TC III 214a)
</blockquote>

Other typical examples include the influence of Hittite syntactic patterns on the Akkadian language in texts composed in Hattuša, such as the very common reproduction of the double marked genitive with "genitive-noun" order, as in:

<blockquote>
ša GÉMEMEŠ-šú ŠUMEŠ-ši-na (KBo 10.1 rev 11; Devecchi 2005, 52) 
of his slave hands-their
"The hands of his slaves"
</blockquote>

Note that both these examples pertain to the field of [[grammatical interference]], as grammatical are normally the features that the superstratum (in these cases, Assyrian and Akkadian) may absorb from the [[substratum]] (in both cases, Hittite).
A topic that is strongly connected to the research on ancient language contact is that of the existence of a Pre-Greek substratum in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean area. According to scholars such as Furnée (1972) and Beekes (2009), a large portion of the Greek lexicon that does not appear to be inherited may be explained as resulting from contacts with one or more local languages that were spoken in the Eastern portion of the Mediterranean before the alleged migration of [[language family | Indo-European]] speakers. The problem of the Pre-Greek substratum is methodologically complex and interesting, as it highlights several methodological issues, sich as (a) the problem of the unicity or multilplicity of substrata, (b) the boundaries and extension of an area interested by the presence of a substratum, (c) the limits of reconstrucion of substrata when working only with a limited set of words and forms that are, furthermore, adapted to the [[morphological adaptation | morphology]] and [[phonological adaptation | phonology]] of one or more [[target language | target languages]] (see Merlin 2020 for further discussion).

==References==
Andrason, A. and Vita, J. (2016). Contact Languages of the Ancient Near East – Three more Case Studies (Ugaritic-Hurrian, Hurro-Akkadian and Canaano-Akkadian). Journal of Language Contact 9, 293-334. doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/19552629-00902004. Beekes, Robert S. P. 2014: Pre-Greek. Phonology, morphology, lexicon. (Brill Introductions to
Indo-European Languages 2) Leiden – Boston. Devecchi, E. 2005. Gli annali di Hattusili I nella versione accadica. Pavia. Furnée, Edzard J. 1972: Die wichtigsten konsonantischen Erscheinungen des Vorgriechischen: mit
einem Appendix über den Vokalismus. (Janua Linguarum, Series practica 150) The Hague. Merlin, S. 2020. “PRE-GREEK”: BETWEEN THEORIES AND LINGUISTIC DATA. EXAMPLES FROM THE ANATOLIAN AREA, in L. L. Repanšek, H. Bichlmeier, V. Sadovski, eds., L. Repanšek, H. Bichlmeier, V. Sadovski, eds., vácāmsi miśrāá krṇavāmahai. Proceedings of the international conference of the Society for Indo-European Studies and IWoBA XII, Ljubljana 4–7 June 2019, Hamburg, pp. 487-507.

Formula

2023-07-20T08:57:46Z

Admin:

==Translations==
formula | formule | Formel

==Article==
After the seminal works by Parry (1928) on the oral transmission of the Homeric poems and the formulaic use of epitheta and expressions, a formula can be defined as a [[phraseme]] (group of words, phrases or even a whole clause) that is repeated in a structurally identical or almost identical fashion within a poetic work or in a group of poetic compositions that belong to a series or to a specific phase of a given culture. The function of the formulaic repetitions is to facilitate oral tradition and, possibly, the composition of new re-elaborations of the cultural material, especially in contexts in which rhythmical and metrical structures are involved.
This pattern, well exemplified in Homer, emerges in many traditions, that are not necessarily related to one another, including [[language family | Indo-European]] - such as the Anglo-Saxon tradition (Magoun 1953) or the Slavic one (on which Parry also worked) - and non Indo-European ones (cf. Wang 1974 on ancient Chinese formulaic poetry). Therefore, it should be regarded to as a trivial universal feature of early literate traditions, rather than a culture specific trait of a group of related literatures.

==Example==
A famous example are the formulaic expressions in Homer, e.g.:
<blockquote>τὸν δ᾽ ἀπαμειβόμενος προσέφη - subject</blockquote>
<blockquote>to him answering said …</blockquote>
The expression occurs 38 times in the Iliad and 65 times in the Odyssey.
Similar cases exist in the Ancient Near East, e.g. in Hittite: 
<blockquote>subject - dative-object ( - appa) - memiškiuwan dāi-</blockquote>
<blockquote>someone to someone began to speak (or: answer)</blockquote>
The formula is attested 100+ times in myths of both Mesopotamian and Hurrian origin, generally at the end of a line (and therefore, possibly, in a specific metrical position), and it is probably a Hittite formula, which would point to existence of some sort of rhythmic or metrical structure.
While the two formulas exemplified here are similar, they are probably accidentally so, but in some cases formulas may migrate by contact, resulting in [[phraseological borrowing]].

==References==
F.P. Magoun, The Oral-Formulaic Character of Anglo-Saxon Narrative Poetry, Speculum 28, 1953, pp. 446-467.
Milman Parry, L'Épithète traditionnelle dans Homère. Essai sur un problème de style homérique, Paris, 1928
C.H. Wang, The Bell and the Drum: Shih Ching as Formulaic Poetry in an Oral Tradition (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1974), pp. 1-3.

Morphological adaptation

2023-07-20T08:57:27Z

Admin:

==Translations==

adattamento morfologico | adaptation morphologique | morphologische Anpassung

==Article==
Like in the case of [[phonological adaptation]], morphological adaptation is one of the formal processes that affect a word when it is borrowed from a different language. Depending on its [[typological classification | morphological typology]], the [[target language]] will require the borrowed word to possess grammatical features that allow it to be morphosyntactically employed. Therefore, if a word is borrowed, e.g., by an inflected language, it will be assigned features that allow inflection under all required categories: it will receive a [[grammatical gender assignment (contact) | grammatical gender]] and, if different inflectional paradigms are available, it will also be included in an appropriate paradigmatic series. Conversely, if a word if borrowed by an isolating language, its morphology would be deleted upon transfer to the target language.
Morphological adaptation is particularly interesting in the study of borrowing scenarios, because several languages tend to select specific classes to which they preferably assign loanwords. Furthermore, the way morphology is adapted can be indicative of the date of acquisition of a loanword, in case the diachrony of the target language involved a shift in its morphological system.

==Example==
In Bronze Age Anatolia, loanwords from Hurrian to Hittite were generally assigned either to the i-stem inflection (although gender is often difficult to ascertain because of the prevalence of dative-singular occurrences). This morphological selection was triggered by the frequency of Hurrian words that end with either a /i/ or a similar vocoid (see Giorgieri 2000, 198) and, quite importantly, it allows to distinguish direct Hurrian-Hittite loans from loans mediated by Luwian, because in the latter Luwian assigned neutral gender and dental it-stem to the loan (Giusfredi and Pisaniello 2020, 216-220).

==References==
Giorgieri, M. 2000. Schizzo grammaticale della lingua hurrica. Parola del Passato 55, 171-277. Giusfredi, F. and Pisaniello, V. 2020. Grammatical categories in contact. Gender assignment criteria in Hittite borrowings from the neighboring languages. In L. Repanšek, H. Bichelmeier and V. Sadovski, eds, vácāmsi miśrā krṇavāmahai Proceedings of the international conference of the Society for Indo-European Studies and IWoBA XII, Ljubljana 4–7 June 2019, celebrating one hundred years of [[language family | Indo-European]] comparative linguistics at the University of Ljubljana, Hamburg, pp. 209-233.

Active-stative alignment

2023-07-20T08:57:14Z

Admin:

==Translations==

allineamento attivo-stativo | Aktivsprache | langue active

==Article==

The active-stative alignment is a super-type of [[alignment (morphosyntactic) | alignment]] that includes several subtypes, which all have in common the existence of a criterion for morphologically marking the core cases of the predication depending on their semantic role. In general, while an opposition exists between agent morpheme (A) used for transitive grammatical subjects and patient morpheme (O) used for transitive objects, intransitive verbs can take either an agent-oriented (SA) or a patient-oriented (SO) subject depending on the semantic properties of the actants.
While this alignment is common, in its different realizations, in several languages of Asia and Meso- and Southamerica, its relevance for ancient languages has been debated. Notably, it has been hypothesized that Proto-Indoeuropean, or an ancestor of if, at some stage featured some active-stative traits (cf. e.g. Gamrkrelidze 1994). Historical [[language family | Indo-European]] languages may exhibits some features that are related to an active-stative pattern, such as split-intransitivity in Ancient Anatolian (see below).

==Example==
Garrett's law for Hittite intransitives (Garrett 1990), which also holds for Luwic and, arguably, for all languages of Ancient Anatolia, states that clitic subject pronouns occur obligatorily to mark the SO of unaccusative intransitive verbs, and may not occur to mark the SA of unergative intransitive verbs.

<blockquote>
n=aš aki
conn=he die.prs3sg
he dies
</blockquote>

but:

<blockquote>
natta=ma=wa išparizzi
not=but=quot kick.prs3sg
(it) does not kick
</blockquote>

==References==

Gamkrelidze, Th. V. (1994). Proto-Indo-European as a Language of Stative-Active Typology. In: Indogermanica et Caucasica, pp. 25-35. Garrett, A. (1990). ‘Hittite Enclitic Subjects and Transitive Verbs’. Journal of Cuneiform Studies 42, pp. 227-42.

Prosody

2023-07-20T08:56:42Z

Admin:

==Translations==
prosodia | prosodie | Prosodie

==Article==
Prosody is the set of features that describe the behavior of [[supersegmental unit | supersegmental units]] within a language (Cotticelli Kurras 2007, 634). As the name of a discipline, it is the field of linguistics concerned with said features. In the study of ancient languages, especially [[language family | Indo-European]] ones, one of the most important concerns of prosodic research is the identification and description of accent typology and position, as this is frequently a significant factor in the definition of phonetic context that govern [[sound law | conditional sound laws]].

==References==
Cotticelli-Kurras, P. 2007. Lessico di linguistica, Alessandria.

Alignment (morphosyntactic)

2023-07-20T08:56:32Z

Admin:

==Translations==
Allineamento | structure d’actance | morphosyntaktische Ausrichtung

==Article==
Morphosyntactic alignment, or simply alignment, is a morphosyntactic structural feature governing the codification of core semantic roles into grammatical relationships (Dixon 1994). It is typologically distributed and is scalar rather than polarized. Two polar configurations are:
# the ergative-absolutive system, involving the presence of a single codification for the PATIENT and (inaccusative intranstive) SUBJECT opposed to a different codification for the AGENT. In a formula, it can be expressed as S = O ≠ A (where S indicates the subject case, O the patient case, A the agent case. The AGENT case is called ergative, and it is typically marked. The PATIENT/SUBJECT case is called absolutive, and it is often unmarked (it is not unusual for it to be encoded by a 0-[[morpheme]] in [[typological classification|inflected]] and [[typological classification|agglutinative]] languages).
# the nominative-accusative system, involving the presence of a single codification for the SUBJECT and AGENT roles, and a different one for the PATIENT. In this case, the AGENT/SUBJECT case is called nominative, while the PATIENT role is called accusative. The pattern is: S = A ≠ O.
However, as the opposition is all but polarized, and many languages present a mix of ergative-absolutive and nominative-accusative behaviors, producing a range of phenomena that are referred to as “split-ergative” patterns. In systems that base on the A,S,O coordinates, semantically inergative predicates may pattern with either transitive or inaccusative predicates, often in a hardly predictable fashion, which contributes to the complexity of the possible outcomes.
Other models of alignment also exist, including the [[active-stative alignment]], in which the semantic core opposition is based on the semantics features of the predication, and a few minor systems that are represented in a very modest amount of observed languages. The active-stative alignment has received a fair amount of attention in historical grammar, because some scholars propose that [[language family | Indo-European]] patterned with it (Bauer 2000, recently discussed by Viti 2014).
In contact scenarios, alignment systems are relevant because it may trigger and/or be affected by [[grammatical interference]].

==References==
Bauer, B. 2000. Archaic syntax in Indo-European: the spread of transitivity in Latin and French, Berlin.
Dixon, R. 1994. Ergativity. Cambridge.
Viti, C. 2014. Reconstructing Syntactic Variation in Proto-Indo-European, in Indo-European Linguistics 2, 73-111.

Implicational universal

2023-07-20T08:55:47Z

Admin:

==Translations==

universale implicazionale | universaux implicationnels | Implikationen

==Article==
Concept introduced by Greenberg (1963), who observed that the presence of some typological features within a language will generally predict, with a fair level of accuracy, the presence of other features.
Contrary to [[absolute universal | absolute universals]], the implications between typological structures are not infallible: several cases exist in which an expected match is not present in one language. Therefore, the label "universal", which survives as it has become traditional, is in fact a misnomer.

==Example==
An implicational universal is the tendency for [[typological classification | verb-final languages (OV languages)]] to also exhibit postposition instead of preposition. This is confirmed in the Anatolian branch of [[language family | Indo-European]] by Luwian, Palaic and Hittite, which all feature clause-final verbs as well as postpositional phrases. However, a very trivial example of a violation of this implication is provided by one of the best known ancient Indo-European languages, Latin, which features clause-final verbs but uses prepositional phrases, thereby exhibiting a mixed head-final and head-initial order in its phrasal architecture.

==References==
Greenberg, J.H. 1963. Universals of Language, Cambridge, MA.

Language family

2023-07-20T08:55:13Z

Admin:

===Translations===
famiglia linguistica | famille linguistique/famille de langues | Sprachfamilie

===Article===
A language family is a group of languages identified on a genealogical (or genetic) basis. The genealogical criterion has been scientifically established during the 19th century and constitutes a core notion in the historical linguistics. Its main output is the tree model (Germ. Stammbaumtheorie) presented in 1861 by August Schleicher, although it had been announced by Schleicher in a series of papers since 1853. Schleicher’s tree model is the visual representation of the relationships existing between languages within the Indo-European group. However, rather than being a simple descriptive model, it has a great euristic value: it is in fact the result of the historical-comparative method applied to a group of languages for which the linguistic family relationship has been established. In other words, by means of the historical-comparative method (see also [[sound law]]), it is possible to establish the existence of cognate linguistic forms and consequently to trace the languages that exhibit such forms back to an original proto-language from which they have been generated over time.
Schleicher’s first tree model (1853) put at the top the common ancestor, Indo-European, (Indogermanisch in the German terminological tradition), divided into three branches: (1) Celtic; (2) Slavic-Germanic divided into Germanic and Baltoslavic, the latter in turn divided into Baltic and Slavic; (3) Ario-Pelasgic divided into Pelasgic (Latin and Greek) and Arian (Iranic and Indic).

<center>
https://ercpalac.info/uploads/editor/images/2880px-Schleicher_Tree-2.jpeg

Schleicher's tree from Wikimedia Commons.
</center>

In contrast, the model presented later (1861), generally regarded as definitive, is presented horizontally and has a more complex – always binary – articulation: on the left side there is the protolanguage, on the right side the ramifications and later developments, each time divided into two subgroups: 1) Slavic-Balto-Germanic subdivided into Germanic (historically represented by northern and western Germanic, as well as the extinct Gothic) and Balto-Slavic subdivided into Baltic (Old Prussian, Lithuanian/Latvian) and Slavonic (western and southeastern); 2) Aryo-Greek-Italo-Celtic subdivided into Celtic (Gaelic languages, British languages, extinct Gallic), Italic subdivided into Latin (Romance languages) and extinct Osco-Umbrian – or Sabellic, and finally Albanian from which the branches of Ancient Greek (which will give rise to Modern Greek) and Indo-Iranic (Iranian languages, Indic languages) is detached.
A major difference between the two versions of the theory lies in the position of Celtic: further studies have shown that Schleicher had the right intuition in 1853 by separating Celtic from Italic. In fact on the existence of an Italo-Celtic subgroup the debate has long been heated. Proponents rely on certain correspondences, e.g., the ending in -r of the passive, that indeed unite the Celtic and Italic groups. However, a morphological correspondence may also have motivations other than a common Indo-European origin: it could in fact be a common innovation, or a coincidental parallel innovation, or even a phenomenon of [[language contact]], as is precisely the case with the -r ending of the passive for the languages of the Italic and Celtic groups.
Since Watkins’s article (Italo-Celtic revisited, 1966), most scholars agree that the Italo-Celtic group is not adequately documented: among others, MacCone (Relative Chronologie: Keltisch, 1992) has demonstrated the non-existence of a common proto-Italo-Celtic by explaining the common traits between the two groups from the frequent contacts between the Celtic and Italic populations of the origins. And this is the most widely accepted hypothesis among scholars today. However, there still remain some supporters of this hypothesis (see, e.g., Kortlandt, Italo-Celtic Origins and Prehistoric Development of the Irish Language, 2007) who see not only in the language, but also in the archaeological record, the actual evidence for the existence of a common proto-language of origin.
New linguistic data further expanded the tree model: the decipherment of Hittite (Hrozný 1915, 1917) and its consequent identification as an Indo-European language led to the addition of the entire Anatolian language group. Then, the seminal work of Ventris and Chadwick (1953) marked the definitive recognition of the Mycenaean, the language encoded in Linear B, as Greek of 2nd millennium, anticipating by many centuries the attestations of the Greek group. Moreover, in early 20th century, Tocharian as the most Eastern IE languages has been discovered and identified.
Subsequent expansions prove that Schleicher’s tree model of Indo-European languages should not be regarded as a definitive model in itself. Nonetheless the methodology at its basis – precisely the historical-comparative method – still remains unchallenged and has been (more or less successfully) employed in order to found other language families of the world, e.g., the Afro-Asiatic family, the Sino-Tibetan family etc.

==Example==
While Indo-European remains the prototypical example of a language family, several details about internal branching may vary significantly in the works of different scholars. 
Other examples of language families from the Ancient Near Easter world include the Afro-Asiatic family, with the all-important Semitic Branch (to which Akkadian, Eblaite, Aramaic, Arabic, Canaanite etc. all belong), which is as complex and debated as the Indo-European one, but also the Hurro-Urartian language family, which to date only includes to members. Other languages of the Ancient Near Eastern Areas are, instead, isolated, meaning that no genealogical relationship was established so far.

==References==
Anthony, David W. and Ringe, Don (2015). The Indo-European Homeland from Linguistic and Archaeological Perspectives. Annual Review of Linguistics 1, pp. 199–219.
Barbera, Emanuele, Corso di Linguistica Generale. http://www.bmanuel.org/corling/corling2-0.html
Cotticelli-Kurras, Paola (2007). Lessico di linguistica. Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso.
Cotticelli-Kurras, Paola (2009). La ricostruzione della protolingua indoeuropea alla luce dei dati anatolici. Incontri Linguistici 32, pp. 117–136.
Graffi, Giorgio. Due secoli di pensiero linguistico. Dai primi dell’Ottocento a oggi. Roma: Carocci, 2010

Language family

2023-07-20T08:54:42Z

Admin: Created page with "===Translations=== famiglia linguistica | famille linguistique/famille de langues | Sprachfamilie ===Article=== A language family is a group of languages identified on a g..."

===Translations===
famiglia linguistica | famille linguistique/famille de langues | Sprachfamilie

===Article===
A language family is a group of languages identified on a genealogical (or genetic) basis. The genealogical criterion has been scientifically established during the 19th century and constitutes a core notion in the historical linguistics. Its main output is the tree model (Germ. Stammbaumtheorie) presented in 1861 by August Schleicher, although it had been announced by Schleicher in a series of papers since 1853. Schleicher’s tree model is the visual representation of the relationships existing between languages within the Indo-European group. However, rather than being a simple descriptive model, it has a great euristic value: it is in fact the result of the historical-comparative method applied to a group of languages for which the linguistic family relationship has been established. In other words, by means of the historical-comparative method (see also [[sound law]]), it is possible to establish the existence of cognate linguistic forms and consequently to trace the languages that exhibit such forms back to an original proto-language from which they have been generated over time.
Schleicher’s first tree model (1853) put at the top the common ancestor, Indo-European, (Indogermanisch in the German terminological tradition), divided into three branches: (1) Celtic; (2) Slavic-Germanic divided into Germanic and Baltoslavic, the latter in turn divided into Baltic and Slavic; (3) Ario-Pelasgic divided into Pelasgic (Latin and Greek) and Arian (Iranic and Indic).

<center>
https://ercpalac.info/uploads/editor/images/2880px-Schleicher_Tree-2.jpeg

Schleicher's tree from Wikimedia Commons.
</center>

In contrast, the model presented later (1861), generally regarded as definitive, is presented horizontally and has a more complex – always binary – articulation: on the left side there is the protolanguage, on the right side the ramifications and later developments, each time divided into two subgroups: 1) Slavic-Balto-Germanic subdivided into Germanic (historically represented by northern and western Germanic, as well as the extinct Gothic) and Balto-Slavic subdivided into Baltic (Old Prussian, Lithuanian/Latvian) and Slavonic (western and southeastern); 2) Aryo-Greek-Italo-Celtic subdivided into Celtic (Gaelic languages, British languages, extinct Gallic), Italic subdivided into Latin (Romance languages) and extinct Osco-Umbrian – or Sabellic, and finally Albanian from which the branches of Ancient Greek (which will give rise to Modern Greek) and Indo-Iranic (Iranian languages, Indic languages) is detached.
A major difference between the two versions of the theory lies in the position of Celtic: further studies have shown that Schleicher had the right intuition in 1853 by separating Celtic from Italic. In fact on the existence of an Italo-Celtic subgroup the debate has long been heated. Proponents rely on certain correspondences, e.g., the ending in -r of the passive, that indeed unite the Celtic and Italic groups. However, a morphological correspondence may also have motivations other than a common Indo-European origin: it could in fact be a common innovation, or a coincidental parallel innovation, or even a phenomenon of language contact, as is precisely the case with the -r ending of the passive for the languages of the Italic and Celtic groups.
Since Watkins’s article (Italo-Celtic revisited, 1966), most scholars agree that the Italo-Celtic group is not adequately documented: among others, MacCone (Relative Chronologie: Keltisch, 1992) has demonstrated the non-existence of a common proto-Italo-Celtic by explaining the common traits between the two groups from the frequent contacts between the Celtic and Italic populations of the origins. And this is the most widely accepted hypothesis among scholars today. However, there still remain some supporters of this hypothesis (see, e.g., Kortlandt, Italo-Celtic Origins and Prehistoric Development of the Irish Language, 2007) who see not only in the language, but also in the archaeological record, the actual evidence for the existence of a common proto-language of origin.
New linguistic data further expanded the tree model: the decipherment of Hittite (Hrozný 1915, 1917) and its consequent identification as an Indo-European language led to the addition of the entire Anatolian language group. Then, the seminal work of Ventris and Chadwick (1953) marked the definitive recognition of the Mycenaean, the language encoded in Linear B, as Greek of 2nd millennium, anticipating by many centuries the attestations of the Greek group. Moreover, in early 20th century, Tocharian as the most Eastern IE languages has been discovered and identified.
Subsequent expansions prove that Schleicher’s tree model of Indo-European languages should not be regarded as a definitive model in itself. Nonetheless the methodology at its basis – precisely the historical-comparative method – still remains unchallenged and has been (more or less successfully) employed in order to found other language families of the world, e.g., the Afro-Asiatic family, the Sino-Tibetan family etc.

==Example==
While Indo-European remains the prototypical example of a language family, several details about internal branching may vary significantly in the works of different scholars. 
Other examples of language families from the Ancient Near Easter world include the Afro-Asiatic family, with the all-important Semitic Branch (to which Akkadian, Eblaite, Aramaic, Arabic, Canaanite etc. all belong), which is as complex and debated as the Indo-European one, but also the Hurro-Urartian language family, which to date only includes to members. Other languages of the Ancient Near Eastern Areas are, instead, isolated, meaning that no genealogical relationship was established so far.

==References==
Anthony, David W. and Ringe, Don (2015). The Indo-European Homeland from Linguistic and Archaeological Perspectives. Annual Review of Linguistics 1, pp. 199–219.
Barbera, Emanuele, Corso di Linguistica Generale. http://www.bmanuel.org/corling/corling2-0.html
Cotticelli-Kurras, Paola (2007). Lessico di linguistica. Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso.
Cotticelli-Kurras, Paola (2009). La ricostruzione della protolingua indoeuropea alla luce dei dati anatolici. Incontri Linguistici 32, pp. 117–136.
Graffi, Giorgio. Due secoli di pensiero linguistico. Dai primi dell’Ottocento a oggi. Roma: Carocci, 2010

Sound law

2023-07-20T08:33:12Z

Admin:

==Translations==
legge fonetica | loi de phonétique | Sprachgesetz

==Article==
Ever since the foundation of the comparative method in the late XIX century, a sound law has been defined as a descriptive principle that illustrates taxative diachronic phonetic change within a language (Cotticelli-Kurras 2007, 420). In other words, a given phoneme of a given language, when occurring in a specific context, will change in a predictable way. Examples in [[language family | Indo-European]] linguistics are numerous. In Anatolian, one could mention, for instance, the outcome of initial group *h2e in the passage from Indo-European to Hittite:
<blockquote>
*h2e > ha
</blockquote>

which is read as follows: every initial group *h2e of Indo-European will turn into initial ha- in Hittite. The initial position represents the context that triggers the change.
In contact scenarios, a successful identification of sound changes is of significance to establish the date of borrowings, as those that undergo a given change must have happened before the change occurred; those that do not, must have occurred after the law was fully applied.

==Example==
An example from the Ancient Near Eastern area in which the lack of application of a sound law helps pinpoint the date of a borrowing is offered by Hurrian historical phonology. At some point protohistorically, Hurrian eliminated initial /r/. Since alphabetic Hurrian contains an Akkadian loanword, riw (<re'u "shepherd"; Richter 2012, 437), and the initial /r/ was not eliminated, we may conclude that the borrowing occurred in historical times, after the relevant sound law had already stopped affecting the Hurrian lexicon.

==References==
Cotticelli-Kurras, F. 2007. Lessico di linguistica, Alessanrdia. Richter, T. 2012. BIbliographisches Glossar des Hurritischen, Wiesbaden.

Native speaker

2023-06-07T08:02:29Z

Admin: /* =Referencers */

===Translations===
madrelingua | Muttersprachler | locuteur natif

===Article===
A native speaker, or mother tongue, or L1 speaker, is a speaker who, as a child, learned a given language as their first language. Native speakers can be monolingual, bilingua or trilingual. Typically, the acquisition window of the native language is located in the first years of life of a human being (Newport 2006), even though the identification of the exact age is still object of debate.
The distinction between a native speaker and a non-native speaker is importante, because the competence of someone who learned a language as a teenager or an adult will [[imperfect learning|never be perfect]], which reflects on the quality and type of the mistakes and interference from their native language when they use a foreign one.

===Referencers===
Newport, E.L. 2006. Language Development, Critical Periods in. Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science, Wiley-Blackwell, 737-740.

Native speaker

2023-06-07T08:02:17Z

Admin:

===Translations===
madrelingua | Muttersprachler | locuteur natif

===Article===
A native speaker, or mother tongue, or L1 speaker, is a speaker who, as a child, learned a given language as their first language. Native speakers can be monolingual, bilingua or trilingual. Typically, the acquisition window of the native language is located in the first years of life of a human being (Newport 2006), even though the identification of the exact age is still object of debate.
The distinction between a native speaker and a non-native speaker is importante, because the competence of someone who learned a language as a teenager or an adult will [[imperfect learning|never be perfect]], which reflects on the quality and type of the mistakes and interference from their native language when they use a foreign one.

===Referencers==
Newport, E.L. 2006. Language Development, Critical Periods in. Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science, Wiley-Blackwell, 737-740.

Imperfect learning

2023-06-07T07:43:33Z

Admin:

===Translations===
apprendimento imperfetto|unvollkommenes Lernen|apprentissage imparfait

===Article===
Imperfect learning of a foreign language indicate the process of partial or imperfect acquisition of a language by a non-native speaker. This concept is a rather trivial one, as, in modern contact linguistics, it refers to a phenomenon that easily observed and described. For the ancient world, however, we have no access to the process of acquisition of foreign languages in scribal schools or similar environments, so the results of imperfect learning of a given language by non-native scribes can be difficult to disambiguate from the effects of interference between the different languages mastered by truly bilingual speakers.

===Examples===
In general, when dealing with grammatical interference in a text written in ancient language, the only way to assess the likelihood that a feature is indeed an indicator of true bilingualism is its frequence in a corpus. For instance, the extension of the so-called i-mutation from Luwian to Hittite in the last centuries of the history of the Hittite language is probably a case of true bilingualism. As the status of Luwian in the Hittite world increased dramatically, the change from /a/ to /i/ of the thematic vowel of the direct cases of common gender nominals, typical of Luwian, extended also to a number of nouns of Hittite, and influenced also former consonant-stems that were eventually reanalzied as i-stems (cf. Rieken 2006). Since this change occurs in a number of nominals that all share some specific features (a-theme or consonant stem) and the affected cases are regularly the same ones, the change seems to be structural and true, and it must have originated in an environment in which Luwian speakers were truly a part of the sociolinguistic environment.
On the other end, the presence of the reduplicated clitic pronouns in the clause-initial [[prosody|prosodic phrase]] of Hittite, with the same pronoun occurring both in the correct position and in the position it would occupy in Luwian, is sporadically found in the Hittite corpus, and given its obvious redundancy it is more likely to reflect the uncertainty of Luwian [[native speaker|native speakers]] who were trying to write Hittite. The difference with the case of the i-mutation is that the extended i-mutation certainly existed in spoken Hittite, while it is very unlkely that a scribe who wrote the same pronoun twice also pronounced it twice when speaking.

===References===
Rieken, E. 2006. Zum hethitisch-luwischen Sprachkontakt in historischer Zeit, Altorientalische Forschungen 33, 271-285.

Native speaker

2023-06-07T07:26:18Z

Admin: Created page with "===Translations=== madrelingua|Muttersprachler|locuteur natif ===Article==="

===Translations===
madrelingua|Muttersprachler|locuteur natif

===Article===

Bilingualism

2023-06-07T07:24:17Z

Admin:

==Bilingualism==

==Translations==
bilinguismo | bilinguisme | Zweisprachigkeit

==Article==
Bilingualism (or multilingualism, if more than two languages are involved), as a social phenomenon, can be defined as the coexistence, in a single community, of two different linguistic varieties that are on the same level, i.e., they are equally employed in both official/formal and unofficial/informal contexts. Bilingualism is thus distinguished from the situation called diglossia, in which the two varieties are functionally differentiated (see, e.g., Berruto 1995).
The term bilingualism (or multilingualism) can also refer to an individual phenomenon, consisting of the knowledge and use of two (or more) languages by a single individual (see, e.g., Weinreich 1953).

==Examples==
If one considers bilingualism as an individual phenomenon, in the case of the Hittite kingdom of the 2nd millennium BCE a large degree of individual bilingualism can be assumed at least among the members of the scribal class. For example, there is a lot of evidence that many scribes entrusted with the drafting of texts in Hittite language were actually Luwian [[native speaker | native speakers]] with knowledge of Hittite as a second language (see, e.g., Yakubovich 2010).
As far as the social dimension of bilingualism is concerned, in the ancient Anatolia of the 2nd and 1st millennium BCE a number of communities are known in which more than one language were in use. However, it is difficult to assess the kind of situation involved in each of the different communities – whether actual bilingualism, diglossia, etc. – because the data we have are mostly partial and do not always allow for a full evaluation of the domains of use of the different varieties and their boundaries.
In the case of the 2nd millennium BCE Hittite kingdom, several languages were attested in the documents included in the Hittite archives, and an almost clear-cut distinction can often be made between the different languages employed in the official domains. Hittite was the language of the internal administration, Akkadian was the language of the international diplomacy, while other languages such as Kizzuwatna Luwian, Palaic, and Hurrian were mostly confined to the cultic practices. Such a functional distinction can be enough to exclude a situation of social bilingualism as defined above, although data on the spoken dimension of these languages are currently lacking.
Conversely, the relationship between the Anatolian languages and the Ancient Greek in the 1st millennium BCE is more difficult to fully assess, because all of them were seemingly employed in the same domains. Considering, e.g., the situation of the ancient Lycia, at least under the Carian satrapy in the 4th century BCE, both Lycian and Greek were employed in both funerary inscriptions and state documents like decrees, and some bilingual documents of both typologies were also found (see, e.g., Réveilhac 2021). Such a situation can be regarded as social bilingualism, although, again, we do not have data on to what extent the two varieties were actually employed in everyday speech by the different members of the community.

==References==
Berruto, Gaetano (1995), Fondamenti di sociolinguistica, Roma – Bari: Laterza.
Réveilhac, Florian (2021), Le statut du lycien et du grec dans les inscriptions pré-hellénistiques de Lycie, in: L’Anatolie: de l’époque archaïque à Byzance (Dialogues d'histoire ancienne – Supplément 22), Besançon: Presses universitaires de Franche-Comté, pp. 67–96.
Weinreich, Uriel (1953), Languages in contact. Findings and problems, New York: Linguistic Circle of New York.
Yakubovich, Ilya (2010), Sociolinguistics of the Luvian Language (Brill’s Studies in Indo-European Languages & Linguistics 2), Leiden – Boston; Brill.

Imperfect learning

2023-06-07T07:23:15Z

Admin: Created page with "===Translations=== apprendimento imperfetto|unvollkommenes Lernen|apprentissage imparfait ===Article=== Imperfect learning of a foreign language indicate the process of pa..."

Double articulation

2023-06-07T07:19:03Z

Admin:

==Translations==
Doppia articolazione | double articulation | zweifache Gliederung

==Article==
The concept of double articulation was first introduced by A. Martinet in the 1940s, but it is ultimately strongly reliant on the duality of linguistic sign as originally formulated by F. De Saussure. The principle of double articulation posits that any linguistic sign can be analyzed in two different fashions: by separating meaningless phonetic elements and by separating its meaningful constituents. The former corresponds to the [[phoneme|phonemes]] of a language, while the latter, which Martinet called monemes (without establishing minimality as a requirement) roughly corresponds to what general linguists call morphemes.
In more general terms, the distinction between the two levels of patterning marks the boundary between the pre-semantic level of phonology and the fully semantic level of morphosyntax.
In contact scenarios, partial or [[imperfect learning |imperfect competence]] of the morphology of a non-native language can carry to mistaken segmentation, which often lead to [[reanalysis|folk-etymological]] analyses and formations.

==Example==
Consider the Cuneiform Luwian noun phrase at-ra-hi-ša ma-aš-ha-hi-š[a] (KUB 35.133 iv 14). It can be analyzed on the first level of articulation, by separating words or morphemes:
<blockquote>
Word-by-word patterning: atrahisa-masahisa
 Morphological patterning: atra-ahit-sa-masa-ahit-sa
</blockquote>
On the second level of articulation, it can be divided in syllables or in phonemes:
<blockquote>
Syllabic patterning: at-ra-hi-sa-ma-sa-hi-sa
 Phonemic patterning: a-t-r-a-h-i-s-a-m-a-s-a-h-i-s-a
</blockquote>
Note that the first patterning highlights morphology (including phonemic elements that are lost by phonotaxis), while the second highlights units of sound.
For examples of folk-etymological patterning, see [[reanalysis]].

==References==
André Martinet, 1960. Éléments de linguistique générale, Paris.

Prestige

2023-06-07T07:12:53Z

Admin:

==Translations==
prestigio | prestige | Prestige

==Article==
In sociolinguistics, a prestige language or dialect is a language or variety thereof that is considered socially prominent within a multilingual or [[diglossia | diglottic]] community (Labov, 1972; Beccaria 1994, 602). When dealing with contact scenarios, a prestige variety is normally represented by the [[superstratum]].
The notion of prestige is related to the concepts of [[code-switching]] and to the more articulated, yet less widespread, distinction of akrolect (the highest variety), mesolect (the intermediate variety) and basilect (the lower variety, cf. Bickerton 1965).

==Example==
Cases of diglossia are hard to exemplify for the ancient Anatolian and Near Eastern world, because lower varieties frequently tend not to be written down, and because cases of code-switching in written documents are rare and motivated by specific pragmatic reasons (e.g., employment of a [[technical language]] for specific parts of documents).
A reasonable example of a prestige language, however, is the Old Babylonian variety of Akkadian during the earliest phases of the Hittite kingdom. In such a phase, Akkadian was employed as the written language used to record texts that were probably originally (orally?) composed in Hittite, thereby resulting in calques of Hittite substratum structures and phraseologies, as in the case of the phrase pahru ibbašû, an Akkadian non grammatical verbatim rendering of the Hittite periphrastic form taruppanteš ešer, "were united", the Edict of Telipinu. For another example of Hittite interference in the Akkadian used in early Hittite documents, cf. also [[substratum]].

==References==
Beccaria, G.L. 1994. Dizionario di Linguistica. Torino. Bickerton, D. 1965. Dynamics of a Creole System. Cambridge. Labov, W. 1972. Sociolinguistic patterns. Philadelphia.

League

2023-06-07T07:11:41Z

Admin:

==Translations==
lega linguistica | - | Sprachbund

==Article==
A league is a set of languages that exist withing a [[Ancient Linguistic Area | linguistic area]] and that, over a long period of very intensive contact, [[convergence | converge]] and end up showing common structural featured, even though they are not necessarily related with each other (Matras 2010, 287). An alternative label, that of convergence area (Weinreich 1958), refers to a georgaphical [[Ancient Linguistic Area | area]] rather than to the languages involved.

==Example==
While a number of hypotheses have been formulated, including the Anatolian language league (Watkins 2001) or the Old Italian one (Filippin 2022), no examples of ascertained language leagues exist before the European Middle ages. The limits of linguistic analysis of corpus languages probably contribute to preventing a safe identification.

==References==
Filippin, A. Una 'lega linguistica' nell'Italia antica? : alcune considerazioni di metodo, Linguarum Varietas 11, 167-178. Matras, Y. 2010. Language Contact, Cambridge. Weinreich, U. 1958. Languages in Contact, New York. Watkins, C. 2001. An Indo-European linguistic area and its characteristics, in Aikhenvald, A.Y. and Dixon, R.M.W. (2001, eds.), Areal diffusion and geenetic inheritance: problems in comparative linguistics, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 44-63.

Substratum

2023-05-10T08:25:50Z

Admin: /* Example */

==Translations==
sostrato | substrat | Substrat

==Article==
Concept introduced by G.I. Ascoli in the 1860s, a linguistic substratum is an endemic language that, in a context of language superposition, influences an intrusive language called a [[superstratum]]. The seminal discussion by Ascoli opened the field to the concept of [[strata]], which, with several modifications and evolutions in the studies that followed, became a crucial model for the description of multilingual areas. Diachronically, the term substrate not only refers to the phenomena which appear as a result of superposition in the dominant language, but to the linguistic layer to which, in a given area, a dominant language has been superimposed, thereby resulting in cultural domination, which in turn could have been caused by economic, social, political or military factors.

==Example==
For corpus-languages, substrata are quite elusive and can only be identified basing on historical information about the demographics of specific areas. They tend to emerge in corpora as low-ranking codes as opposed to the standard scribal tradition of more prestigious superstrata (cf. Anderson and Vita 2016, who present three case studies from the Semitic and Hurrian environments).
An example from the Anatolian area is represented by the presence of grammatical mistakes in the Old Assyrian corpus from Kaneš that depend on interference from the Hittite morph-syntax, e.g. the lack of proper gender marking, as in:

<blockquote>
Šašalika (wife of Ni-ki-li-et) […] ašar libbi=šu (expected: libbi=ša) illak 
“Šašalika may go where (s)he wants” (TC III 214a)
</blockquote>

Other typical examples include the influence of Hittite syntactic patterns on the Akkadian language in texts composed in Hattuša, such as the very common reproduction of the double marked genitive with "genitive-noun" order, as in:

<blockquote>
ša GÉMEMEŠ-šú ŠUMEŠ-ši-na (KBo 10.1 rev 11; Devecchi 2005, 52) 
of his slave hands-their
"The hands of his slaves"
</blockquote>

Note that both these examples pertain to the field of [[grammatical interference]], as grammatical are normally the features that the superstratum (in these cases, Assyrian and Akkadian) may absorb from the [[substratum]] (in both cases, Hittite).
A topic that is strongly connected to the research on ancient language contact is that of the existence of a Pre-Greek substratum in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean area. According to scholars such as Furnée (1972) and Beekes (2009), a large portion of the Greek lexicon that does not appear to be inherited may be explained as resulting from contacts with one or more local languages that were spoken in the Eastern portion of the Mediterranean before the alleged migration of Indo-European speakers. The problem of the Pre-Greek substratum is methodologically complex and interesting, as it highlights several methodological issues, sich as (a) the problem of the unicity or multilplicity of substrata, (b) the boundaries and extension of an area interested by the presence of a substratum, (c) the limits of reconstrucion of substrata when working only with a limited set of words and forms that are, furthermore, adapted to the [[morphological adaptation | morphology]] and [[phonological adaptation | phonology]] of one or more [[target language | target languages]] (see Merlin 2020 for further discussion).

==References==
Andrason, A. and Vita, J. (2016). Contact Languages of the Ancient Near East – Three more Case Studies (Ugaritic-Hurrian, Hurro-Akkadian and Canaano-Akkadian). Journal of Language Contact 9, 293-334. doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/19552629-00902004. Beekes, Robert S. P. 2014: Pre-Greek. Phonology, morphology, lexicon. (Brill Introductions to
Indo-European Languages 2) Leiden – Boston. Devecchi, E. 2005. Gli annali di Hattusili I nella versione accadica. Pavia. Furnée, Edzard J. 1972: Die wichtigsten konsonantischen Erscheinungen des Vorgriechischen: mit
einem Appendix über den Vokalismus. (Janua Linguarum, Series practica 150) The Hague. Merlin, S. 2020. “PRE-GREEK”: BETWEEN THEORIES AND LINGUISTIC DATA. EXAMPLES FROM THE ANATOLIAN AREA, in L. L. Repanšek, H. Bichlmeier, V. Sadovski, eds., L. Repanšek, H. Bichlmeier, V. Sadovski, eds., vácāmsi miśrāá krṇavāmahai. Proceedings of the international conference of the Society for Indo-European Studies and IWoBA XII, Ljubljana 4–7 June 2019, Hamburg, pp. 487-507.

Substratum

2023-05-10T08:25:21Z

Admin: /* Example */

==Translations==
sostrato | substrat | Substrat

==Article==
Concept introduced by G.I. Ascoli in the 1860s, a linguistic substratum is an endemic language that, in a context of language superposition, influences an intrusive language called a [[superstratum]]. The seminal discussion by Ascoli opened the field to the concept of [[strata]], which, with several modifications and evolutions in the studies that followed, became a crucial model for the description of multilingual areas. Diachronically, the term substrate not only refers to the phenomena which appear as a result of superposition in the dominant language, but to the linguistic layer to which, in a given area, a dominant language has been superimposed, thereby resulting in cultural domination, which in turn could have been caused by economic, social, political or military factors.

==Example==
For corpus-languages, substrata are quite elusive and can only be identified basing on historical information about the demographics of specific areas. They tend to emerge in corpora as low-ranking codes as opposed to the standard scribal tradition of more prestigious superstrata (cf. Anderson and Vita 2016, who present three case studies from the Semitic and Hurrian environments).
An example from the Anatolian area is represented by the presence of grammatical mistakes in the Old Assyrian corpus from Kaneš that depend on interference from the Hittite morph-syntax, e.g. the lack of proper gender marking, as in:

<blockquote>
Šašalika (wife of Ni-ki-li-et) […] ašar libbi=šu (expected: libbi=ša) illak 
“Šašalika may go where (s)he wants” (TC III 214a)
</blockquote>

Other typical examples include the influence of Hittite syntactic patterns on the Akkadian language in texts composed in Hattuša, such as the very common reproduction of the double marked genitive with "genitive-noun" order, as in:

<blockquote>
ša GÉMEMEŠ-šú ŠUMEŠ-ši-na (KBo 10.1 rev 11; Devecchi 2005, 52) 
of his slave hands-their
"The hands of his slaves"
</blockquote>

Note that both these examples pertain to the field of [[grammatical interference]], as grammatical are normally the features that the superstratum (in these cases, Assyrian and Akkadian) may absorb from the [[substratum]] (in both cases, Hittite).
A topic that is strongly connected to the research on ancient language contact is that of the existence of a Pre-Greek substratum in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean area. According to scholars such as Furnée (1972) and Beekes (2009), a large portion of the Greek lexicon that does not appear to be inherited may be explained as resulting from contacts with one or more local languages that were spoken in the Eastern portion of the Mediterranean before the alleged migration of Indo-European speakers. The problem of the Pre-Greek substratum is methodologically complex and interesting, as it highlights several methodological issues, sich as (a) the problem of the unicity or multilplicity of substrata, (b) the boundaries and extension of an area interested by the presence of a substratum, (c) the limits of reconstrucion of substrata when working only with a limited set of words and forms that are, furthermore, adapted to the [[morphological adaptation | morphology] and [phonological adaptation | phonology] of one or more [target language | target languages] (see Merlin 2020 for further discussion).

==References==
Andrason, A. and Vita, J. (2016). Contact Languages of the Ancient Near East – Three more Case Studies (Ugaritic-Hurrian, Hurro-Akkadian and Canaano-Akkadian). Journal of Language Contact 9, 293-334. doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/19552629-00902004. Beekes, Robert S. P. 2014: Pre-Greek. Phonology, morphology, lexicon. (Brill Introductions to
Indo-European Languages 2) Leiden – Boston. Devecchi, E. 2005. Gli annali di Hattusili I nella versione accadica. Pavia. Furnée, Edzard J. 1972: Die wichtigsten konsonantischen Erscheinungen des Vorgriechischen: mit
einem Appendix über den Vokalismus. (Janua Linguarum, Series practica 150) The Hague. Merlin, S. 2020. “PRE-GREEK”: BETWEEN THEORIES AND LINGUISTIC DATA. EXAMPLES FROM THE ANATOLIAN AREA, in L. L. Repanšek, H. Bichlmeier, V. Sadovski, eds., L. Repanšek, H. Bichlmeier, V. Sadovski, eds., vácāmsi miśrāá krṇavāmahai. Proceedings of the international conference of the Society for Indo-European Studies and IWoBA XII, Ljubljana 4–7 June 2019, Hamburg, pp. 487-507.

Substratum

2023-05-10T08:23:23Z

Admin: /* References */

==Translations==
sostrato | substrat | Substrat

==Article==
Concept introduced by G.I. Ascoli in the 1860s, a linguistic substratum is an endemic language that, in a context of language superposition, influences an intrusive language called a [[superstratum]]. The seminal discussion by Ascoli opened the field to the concept of [[strata]], which, with several modifications and evolutions in the studies that followed, became a crucial model for the description of multilingual areas. Diachronically, the term substrate not only refers to the phenomena which appear as a result of superposition in the dominant language, but to the linguistic layer to which, in a given area, a dominant language has been superimposed, thereby resulting in cultural domination, which in turn could have been caused by economic, social, political or military factors.

==Example==
For corpus-languages, substrata are quite elusive and can only be identified basing on historical information about the demographics of specific areas. They tend to emerge in corpora as low-ranking codes as opposed to the standard scribal tradition of more prestigious superstrata (cf. Anderson and Vita 2016, who present three case studies from the Semitic and Hurrian environments).
An example from the Anatolian area is represented by the presence of grammatical mistakes in the Old Assyrian corpus from Kaneš that depend on interference from the Hittite morph-syntax, e.g. the lack of proper gender marking, as in:

<blockquote>
Šašalika (wife of Ni-ki-li-et) […] ašar libbi=šu (expected: libbi=ša) illak 
“Šašalika may go where (s)he wants” (TC III 214a)
</blockquote>

Other typical examples include the influence of Hittite syntactic patterns on the Akkadian language in texts composed in Hattuša, such as the very common reproduction of the double marked genitive with "genitive-noun" order, as in:

<blockquote>
ša GÉMEMEŠ-šú ŠUMEŠ-ši-na (KBo 10.1 rev 11; Devecchi 2005, 52) 
of his slave hands-their
"The hands of his slaves"
</blockquote>

Note that both these examples pertain to the field of [[grammatical interference]], as grammatical are normally the features that the superstratum (in these cases, Assyrian and Akkadian) may absorb from the [[substratum]] (in both cases, Hittite).
A topic that is strongly connected to the research on ancient language contact is that of the existence of a Pre-Greek substratum in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean area. According to scholars such as Furnée (1972) and Beekes (2009), a large portion of the Greek lexicon that does not appear to be inherited may be explained as resulting from contacts with one or more local languages that were spoken in the Eastern portion of the Mediterranean before the alleged migration of Indo-European speakers. The problem of the Pre-Greek substratum is methodologically complex and interesting, as it highlights several methodological issues, sich as (a) the problem of the unicity or multilplicity of substrata, (b) the boundaries and extension of an area interested by the presence of a substratum, (c) the limits of reconstrucion of substrata when working only with a limited set of words and forms that are, furthermore, adapted to the morphology and phonology of one or more target languages (see Merlin 2020 for further discussion).

==References==
Andrason, A. and Vita, J. (2016). Contact Languages of the Ancient Near East – Three more Case Studies (Ugaritic-Hurrian, Hurro-Akkadian and Canaano-Akkadian). Journal of Language Contact 9, 293-334. doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/19552629-00902004. Beekes, Robert S. P. 2014: Pre-Greek. Phonology, morphology, lexicon. (Brill Introductions to
Indo-European Languages 2) Leiden – Boston. Devecchi, E. 2005. Gli annali di Hattusili I nella versione accadica. Pavia. Furnée, Edzard J. 1972: Die wichtigsten konsonantischen Erscheinungen des Vorgriechischen: mit
einem Appendix über den Vokalismus. (Janua Linguarum, Series practica 150) The Hague. Merlin, S. 2020. “PRE-GREEK”: BETWEEN THEORIES AND LINGUISTIC DATA. EXAMPLES FROM THE ANATOLIAN AREA, in L. L. Repanšek, H. Bichlmeier, V. Sadovski, eds., L. Repanšek, H. Bichlmeier, V. Sadovski, eds., vácāmsi miśrāá krṇavāmahai. Proceedings of the international conference of the Society for Indo-European Studies and IWoBA XII, Ljubljana 4–7 June 2019, Hamburg, pp. 487-507.

Substratum

2023-05-10T08:18:27Z

Admin: /* Example */

==Translations==
sostrato | substrat | Substrat

==Article==
Concept introduced by G.I. Ascoli in the 1860s, a linguistic substratum is an endemic language that, in a context of language superposition, influences an intrusive language called a [[superstratum]]. The seminal discussion by Ascoli opened the field to the concept of [[strata]], which, with several modifications and evolutions in the studies that followed, became a crucial model for the description of multilingual areas. Diachronically, the term substrate not only refers to the phenomena which appear as a result of superposition in the dominant language, but to the linguistic layer to which, in a given area, a dominant language has been superimposed, thereby resulting in cultural domination, which in turn could have been caused by economic, social, political or military factors.

==Example==
For corpus-languages, substrata are quite elusive and can only be identified basing on historical information about the demographics of specific areas. They tend to emerge in corpora as low-ranking codes as opposed to the standard scribal tradition of more prestigious superstrata (cf. Anderson and Vita 2016, who present three case studies from the Semitic and Hurrian environments).
An example from the Anatolian area is represented by the presence of grammatical mistakes in the Old Assyrian corpus from Kaneš that depend on interference from the Hittite morph-syntax, e.g. the lack of proper gender marking, as in:

<blockquote>
Šašalika (wife of Ni-ki-li-et) […] ašar libbi=šu (expected: libbi=ša) illak 
“Šašalika may go where (s)he wants” (TC III 214a)
</blockquote>

Other typical examples include the influence of Hittite syntactic patterns on the Akkadian language in texts composed in Hattuša, such as the very common reproduction of the double marked genitive with "genitive-noun" order, as in:

<blockquote>
ša GÉMEMEŠ-šú ŠUMEŠ-ši-na (KBo 10.1 rev 11; Devecchi 2005, 52) 
of his slave hands-their
"The hands of his slaves"
</blockquote>

Note that both these examples pertain to the field of [[grammatical interference]], as grammatical are normally the features that the superstratum (in these cases, Assyrian and Akkadian) may absorb from the [[substratum]] (in both cases, Hittite).
A topic that is strongly connected to the research on ancient language contact is that of the existence of a Pre-Greek substratum in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean area. According to scholars such as Furnée (1972) and Beekes (2009), a large portion of the Greek lexicon that does not appear to be inherited may be explained as resulting from contacts with one or more local languages that were spoken in the Eastern portion of the Mediterranean before the alleged migration of Indo-European speakers. The problem of the Pre-Greek substratum is methodologically complex and interesting, as it highlights several methodological issues, sich as (a) the problem of the unicity or multilplicity of substrata, (b) the boundaries and extension of an area interested by the presence of a substratum, (c) the limits of reconstrucion of substrata when working only with a limited set of words and forms that are, furthermore, adapted to the morphology and phonology of one or more target languages (see Merlin 2020 for further discussion).

==References==
Andrason, A. and Vita, J. (2016). Contact Languages of the Ancient Near East – Three more Case Studies (Ugaritic-Hurrian, Hurro-Akkadian and Canaano-Akkadian). Journal of Language Contact 9, 293-334. doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/19552629-00902004. Devecchi, E. 2005. Gli annali di Hattusili I nella versione accadica. Pavia.

Bilingualism

2022-12-28T08:01:18Z

Admin: Created page with "==Bilingualism== ==Translations== bilinguismo | bilinguisme | Zweisprachigkeit ==Article== Bilingualism (or multilingualism, if more than two languages are involved), as..."

==Bilingualism==

==Translations==
bilinguismo | bilinguisme | Zweisprachigkeit

==Article==
Bilingualism (or multilingualism, if more than two languages are involved), as a social phenomenon, can be defined as the coexistence, in a single community, of two different linguistic varieties that are on the same level, i.e., they are equally employed in both official/formal and unofficial/informal contexts. Bilingualism is thus distinguished from the situation called diglossia, in which the two varieties are functionally differentiated (see, e.g., Berruto 1995).
The term bilingualism (or multilingualism) can also refer to an individual phenomenon, consisting of the knowledge and use of two (or more) languages by a single individual (see, e.g., Weinreich 1953).

==Examples==
If one considers bilingualism as an individual phenomenon, in the case of the Hittite kingdom of the 2nd millennium BCE a large degree of individual bilingualism can be assumed at least among the members of the scribal class. For example, there is a lot of evidence that many scribes entrusted with the drafting of texts in Hittite language were actually Luwian native speakers with knowledge of Hittite as a second language (see, e.g., Yakubovich 2010).
As far as the social dimension of bilingualism is concerned, in the ancient Anatolia of the 2nd and 1st millennium BCE a number of communities are known in which more than one language were in use. However, it is difficult to assess the kind of situation involved in each of the different communities – whether actual bilingualism, diglossia, etc. – because the data we have are mostly partial and do not always allow for a full evaluation of the domains of use of the different varieties and their boundaries.
In the case of the 2nd millennium BCE Hittite kingdom, several languages were attested in the documents included in the Hittite archives, and an almost clear-cut distinction can often be made between the different languages employed in the official domains. Hittite was the language of the internal administration, Akkadian was the language of the international diplomacy, while other languages such as Kizzuwatna Luwian, Palaic, and Hurrian were mostly confined to the cultic practices. Such a functional distinction can be enough to exclude a situation of social bilingualism as defined above, although data on the spoken dimension of these languages are currently lacking.
Conversely, the relationship between the Anatolian languages and the Ancient Greek in the 1st millennium BCE is more difficult to fully assess, because all of them were seemingly employed in the same domains. Considering, e.g., the situation of the ancient Lycia, at least under the Carian satrapy in the 4th century BCE, both Lycian and Greek were employed in both funerary inscriptions and state documents like decrees, and some bilingual documents of both typologies were also found (see, e.g., Réveilhac 2021). Such a situation can be regarded as social bilingualism, although, again, we do not have data on to what extent the two varieties were actually employed in everyday speech by the different members of the community.

==References==
Berruto, Gaetano (1995), Fondamenti di sociolinguistica, Roma – Bari: Laterza.
Réveilhac, Florian (2021), Le statut du lycien et du grec dans les inscriptions pré-hellénistiques de Lycie, in: L’Anatolie: de l’époque archaïque à Byzance (Dialogues d'histoire ancienne – Supplément 22), Besançon: Presses universitaires de Franche-Comté, pp. 67–96.
Weinreich, Uriel (1953), Languages in contact. Findings and problems, New York: Linguistic Circle of New York.
Yakubovich, Ilya (2010), Sociolinguistics of the Luvian Language (Brill’s Studies in Indo-European Languages & Linguistics 2), Leiden – Boston; Brill.

Diglossia

2022-12-13T12:14:56Z

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==Translations==
diglossia | diglossie | Diglossie

==Article==
Diglossia is defined as the coexistence, in the same language community, of two different linguistic [[variation|varieties]] that are not on the same level, as in the case of [[bilingualism]], but are functionally distinct. One of the two varieties is the “high” (H) one, generally [[standard language|standardised]], more [[prestige|prestigious]], taught and learned in schools, and used in formal and official contexts, contrasting with the other variety, the “low” (L) one, usually corresponding to the native language of the speakers, confined to familiar and informal contexts (see Ferguson 1959).
In the Italian tradition, a more fine-grained distinction has been introduced by Berruto (1987) between diglossia and dilalia, the latter referring to a situation in which the “high” and the “low” varieties frequently interchange in the informal domains, in contrast to the strict functional distinction between the two varieties that one would expect in a diglossia situation. This perfectly describes, e.g., the relationship between the Standard Italian variety and the different Italo-Romance dialects spoken in Italy.

==Examples==
In the case of the languages of the 2nd and 1st millennium BCE Anatolia, it is a difficult task to identify assured situations of diglossia, because we often lack data on the contexts of use of the different language varieties employed in a given community and, more generally, many social aspects of the ancient communities are difficult to reconstruct.
Although there have been some attempts to describe in terms of diglossia the relationship, e.g., between Hittite (H) and Luwian (L) in the Empire period (implicitly, perhaps, Rosenkranz 1938, who regarded Hittite as a merely “Hof- und Amtssprache” and Luwian as the “Umgangssprache”; more explicitly, although with caution, van den Hout 2007), or between Ancient Greek (H) and the different epichoric languages of Anatolia (L) in the 1st millennium BCE (see, e.g., Magnelli and Petrantoni 2020 on Sidetic), the actual situations, as far as we can see from the data, were probably more complex than a clear-cut distinction between a high [[standard language|variety for official uses]] and a low variety employed in informal contexts.

==References==
Berruto, Gaetano (1987), Lingua, dialetto, diglossia, dilalìa, in: G. Holtus and J. Kramer (eds.), Romania et Slavia adriatica. Festschrift für Zarko Muljačić, Hamburg: Buske, pp. 57–81.
van den Hout, Theo P.J. (2007), Institutions, Vernaculars, Publics: The Case of Second-Millennium Anatolia, in S.L. Sanders (ed.), Margins of Writings, Origins of Cultures, Second Printing with Postscripts and Minor Corrections (Oriental Institute Seminars 2), Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, pp. 221–262.
Ferguson, Charles A. (1959), Diglossia, Word 15, pp. 325–340.
Magnelli, Adalberto and Petrantoni, Giuseppe (2020), La dedica in greco e sidetico di Seleucia (S6): un caso di diglossia?, Erga-Logoi 8, pp. 77–87.
Rosenkranz, Bernhard (1938), Die Stellung des Luwischen im Ḫatti-Reiche, Indogermanische Forschungen 56, pp. 265–84.

Diglossia

2022-12-13T12:12:11Z

Admin: Created page with "==Translations== diglossia | diglossie | Diglossie ==Article== Diglossia is defined as the coexistence, in the same language community, of two different linguistic varieti..."

==Translations==
diglossia | diglossie | Diglossie

==Article==
Diglossia is defined as the coexistence, in the same language community, of two different linguistic varieties that are not on the same level, as in the case of bilingualism, but are functionally distinct. One of the two varieties is the “high” (H) one, generally standardised, more prestigious, taught and learned in schools, and used in formal and official contexts, contrasting with the other variety, the “low” (L) one, usually corresponding to the native language of the speakers, confined to familiar and informal contexts (see Ferguson 1959).
In the Italian tradition, a more fine-grained distinction has been introduced by Berruto (1987) between diglossia and dilalia, the latter referring to a situation in which the “high” and the “low” varieties frequently interchange in the informal domains, in contrast to the strict functional distinction between the two varieties that one would expect in a diglossia situation. This perfectly describes, e.g., the relationship between the Standard Italian variety and the different Italo-Romance dialects spoken in Italy.

==Examples==
In the case of the languages of the 2nd and 1st millennium BCE Anatolia, it is a difficult task to identify assured situations of diglossia, because we often lack data on the contexts of use of the different language varieties employed in a given community and, more generally, many social aspects of the ancient communities are difficult to reconstruct.
Although there have been some attempts to describe in terms of diglossia the relationship, e.g., between Hittite (H) and Luwian (L) in the Empire period (implicitly, perhaps, Rosenkranz 1938, who regarded Hittite as a merely “Hof- und Amtssprache” and Luwian as the “Umgangssprache”; more explicitly, although with caution, van den Hout 2007), or between Ancient Greek (H) and the different epichoric languages of Anatolia (L) in the 1st millennium BCE (see, e.g., Magnelli and Petrantoni 2020 on Sidetic), the actual situations, as far as we can see from the data, were probably more complex than a clear-cut distinction between a high variety for official uses and a low variety employed in informal contexts.

==References==
Berruto, Gaetano (1987), Lingua, dialetto, diglossia, dilalìa, in: G. Holtus and J. Kramer (eds.), Romania et Slavia adriatica. Festschrift für Zarko Muljačić, Hamburg: Buske, pp. 57–81.
van den Hout, Theo P.J. (2007), Institutions, Vernaculars, Publics: The Case of Second-Millennium Anatolia, in S.L. Sanders (ed.), Margins of Writings, Origins of Cultures, Second Printing with Postscripts and Minor Corrections (Oriental Institute Seminars 2), Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, pp. 221–262.
Ferguson, Charles A. (1959), Diglossia, Word 15, pp. 325–340.
Magnelli, Adalberto and Petrantoni, Giuseppe (2020), La dedica in greco e sidetico di Seleucia (S6): un caso di diglossia?, Erga-Logoi 8, pp. 77–87.
Rosenkranz, Bernhard (1938), Die Stellung des Luwischen im Ḫatti-Reiche, Indogermanische Forschungen 56, pp. 265–84.

Diaphasic variation

2022-12-12T13:45:58Z

Admin: /* Example */

==Translations==
variazione diafasica | variation diaphasique | diaphasische Variation

==Article==
By diaphasic variation we indicate a change of register that is actively applied by the speaker to adapt to specific social or pragmatic circumstances (the label was introduced by Coseriu 1981). It differs from [[diastratic variation]], which has similar outcomes, because it is context-dependent, and, as such, results from an active effort or choice by the speaker.
In corpus languages, distinguishing diaphasic and diastratic variation can be extremely difficult and the two can be told apart only basing on careful contextual analysis. In general, for the diaphasic phenomenon to be observable, a change must occur within a single text.
The relevance for contact analysis depends on the fact that in multilingual or [[diglossia | diglottic]] scenarios, diaphasic variation may trigger code-switching or code-mixing, whenever the speaker resorts to a different dialect or language for the puropos of increasing, decreasing or simply altering the register.

==Example==
In the Hittite instruction text IBoT 1.36, Melchert (1996) identified a trace of diaphasic variation, depending on the colloquiality level of the context.

<blockquote>The bodyguard […] says to the chief of the bodyguard or to the chief of the pa[lace] personal […], to him he says, “It’s wrapped up (colloquial Hittite: hu-u-la-li-it-ta-at)”. The chief of the bodyguard, or the commander of 10 bodyguards or the military herald says to the king, “It is finished” ([[standard language | standard]] Hittite: ta-ru-up-ta-at)</blockquote>

Whether in some cases the [[code-switching | switch]] to other languages in the Hittite texts may also have diaphasic relevance remains unclear.

==References==
Coseriu, E. 1981. Los conceptos de 'dialecto', 'nivel' y 'estilo de lengua' y el sentido propio de la dialectologia. Lingüística española actual 3, pp. 1-32.
Melchert, H.C. 1996. Review of Güterbock, H.G. and van den Hout Th. The Hittite Instruction for the Royal Bodyguard (Assyriological Studies 24), 1991, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 55, pp. 134-135.

Context of communication

2022-11-24T07:41:04Z

Admin:

==Translations==
contesto della comunicazione | contexte de la communication | Kommunikationssituation

==Article==
In a functionalist approach to general linguistics, context encompasses all non-language-internal elements that characterize a situation in which an act of communication takes place.
While this definition may appear rather clear and easy to grasp, the exact details of what constitutes the context of a communication act may vary quite a lot depending on the different schools. Shared knowledge within a community, a geographical and even physical location, the [diastratic variation | diastratic] features of the speakers involved, pragmatic habits and rules affeting them, all are examples of factors to be taken into consideration.
For a discussion on the complexity of the issue, see the paper by Rigotti and Rocci (2006).

==Example==
No proper examples can be provided for ancient corpus languages attested mostly in archive-texts, for obvious reasons. See however also under the closely related concept of [[variation]].

==References==
E. Rigotti and A. Rocci (2006). TOWARDS A DEFINITION OF COMMUNICATION CONTEXT. FOUNDATIONS OF AN INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACH TO COMMUNICATION. Science of Communication 6/2, pp. 155-180.