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This paper discusses the problem of linguistic reconstruction in the Indo-European languages with particular attention to syntax. While many scholars consider syntactic reconstruction as being in principle impossible, other scholars simply apply to syntax the same tenets of the Comparative Method and of Internal Reconstruction, which were originally used in Indo-European studies for reconstructing phonology and morphology. Accordingly, it is assumed that synchronically anomalous syntactic structures are more ancient than productive syntactic constructions; the former are considered as being residues of an early stage of Proto-Indo-European, where they were also more regular and took part in a consistent syntactic system. Various hypotheses of Proto-Indo-European as a syntactically consistent language, which in the last years have witnessed resurgence, are here discussed and criticized. We argue that syntactic consistency is nowhere attested in the Indo-European languages, which in their earliest records rather document an amazing structural variation. Accordingly, we reconstruct Proto-Indo-European as an inconsistent syntactic system in the domains of word order, agreement, configurationality, and alignment, and we consider inconsistency and structural variation to be an original condition of languages. Moreover, we make some proposals for the appropriate use of typology in linguistic reconstruction, with some examples of what can or cannot be reconstructed in syntax.
This paper discusses the morphosyntactic strategies used in Tocharian to encode argument functions in simple clauses, with focus on experience predicates. This may be relevant to fill a lacuna in the literature on experience predicates, which have not been investigated in Tocharian. We shall see that experience predicates in Tocharian typically require a nominative experiencer, rather than an oblique experiencer, and that the low transitivity of the predicate is expressed by the middle voice. All this may also be of more general relevance to illustrate the interaction between case marking and verbal voice to express argument functions in languages.
Cet article analyse les stratégies morphosyntaxiques employées en tokharien pour codifier les prédicats dits d’« expérience », par le biais de parallèles issus d’autres langues indo-européennes. Cela peut être important pour remplir un vide dans la littérature concernant ce type de verbes, qui jusqu’ici n’ont pas été analysés par rapport au tokharien. On montrera que ces prédicats demandent le cas nominatif pour le sujet qui réalise l’expérience, au lieu d’un cas oblique, et que la faible transitivité de ces prédicats est exprimée par la diathèse moyenne. De manière plus générale, tout cela pourra aussi mettre en lumière l’interaction entre les cas de la déclinaison et la diathèse verbale dans l’expression de fonctions argumentales dans les langues.
- ALAC has multiple sponsors: Volumes 1, 2, 3, 5 have been funded by the “Research Centre for History and Culture” of Beijing Normal University (Zhuhai) and of the BNU-HKBU United International College. Volume 4 has been funded by the ERC project “Pre-classical Anatolian Languages in Contact” (European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program, grant agreement nº757299). Volumes 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 are funded by the Jao Tsung-I Academy of Sinology at Hong Kong Baptist University. All volumes are published under a CC BY-NC-ND license.
- Proposals must present original work and must have been submitted exclusively to ALAC. Both monographs and collective volumes are welcome.
- Submissions may regard any civilizations from any continents, developed between prehistory and the 15th century AD, that is, the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire.
- Submissions may regard any aspects of Antiquity: history, archaeology, art and architecture, philology, linguistics, literature, philosophy, religion studies, sociology, anthropology, etc.
- ALAC also considers studies of oral literature, such as proverbs and folklore, as well as field work on endangered languages, which represent the legacy of ancient traditions verbally transmitted from generation to generation.
Authors are cordially invited to submit proposals and full manuscripts by email to the Series Editors: Professor CHEN Zhi , Professor Carlotta Viti , and Professor WANG Xiang (Shawn Wang) .
- ALAC's sponspor Jao Tsung-I Academy of Sinology at Hong Kong Baptist University may provide financial support for the Book Publishing Costs.