Onomástica griega, fraseología, lengua poética indoeuropea: para una reelaboración de Fr. Bechtel, Die historischen Personennamen des Griechischen

The present paper relies on the materials from the files for a reelaboration of Friedrich Bechtel’s epoch-making Die historischen Personennamen des Griechischen(1917: HPNG), that, having basically the same structure as HPNG, will integrate the names of the 1st millenium, which were still not known at its time, and those attested in Linear B, as well as the phraseological collocations, poetic or prosaistic, underlying them, which were taken into account only sporadically in HPNG, and, if possible, their parallels and eventual IE background. The names discussed are classified into three groups: those attested only in 1st millennium Greek, those attested also in Mycenaean, and those attested exclusively in Mycenaean. Special attention is dedicated to four names which reflect inherited lexicon and Indo-European poetic phraseology, namely Ἁρμόδικoς (and Ἁρμoδίκᾱ), Βοᾱ́θοος, Εὐρυφάων (and Εὐρύφαντος), and Φέριστος, Φέρτατος.

La lingua nella riflessione di Vittore Pisani

The paper focusses on Vittore Pisani’s considerations about the nature of language and speech. A renowned scholar in historical linguistics, Pisani made nospecific contribution to theoretical topics. Nevertheless, in a series of passages from some of his papers the creative role of speakers and hearers is emphasized, and the observation is made that the products of their linguistic activity can be the models for new speech acts. For Pisani speech acts within a given social aggregate can be investigated to describe what they have in common at the various levels of analysis, and the results of this investigation can be organized into a “system of isoglosses”, which represent what is called a language. So, language is not an ideal entity with an autonomous existence and is organized regardless of the individual speech acts, but it is the result of a reconstruction that can vary according to the data on which it is based. Such a conception is in line with contemporary sociolinguistic and pragmatic research.

Some considerations on the syntax of expletive subjects in Old Venetan and the emergence of subject clitics

Old Venetan varieties display different forms of third person subject pronouns. In particular, the reduced monosyllabic and asyllabic forms are stronglyrelated to the expletive subject function. Even if the reduced forms do not have the same distribution of subject clitics in Modern Venetan, it can be argued that these forms have become clitics before the other pronouns. The article takes into consideration the syntax of expletive subjects in Old Venetan in relation to the rise of subject clitics in these varieties.

Fra rappresentazioni concettuali, categorie grammaticali e accidenti della storia: «il fascino inquieto della ricerca scientifica» di Romano Lazzeroni

This paper discusses the impact of Romano Lazzeroni’s scholarship on Historical Linguistics and Indo-European studies altogether, by analyzing his groundbreakingworks and long-lasting legacy in relation to the state of the art and current research on four main questions: 1. morphosyntax/semantics interface; 2. linguistic andcultural reconstruction; 3. linguistic categorization; 4. language change. A portrait of Romano Lazzeroni as a brilliant and unique Teacher is also provided, as a modest token of gratitude to a giant of science and big-hearted Mentor.

La relation entre accord et concordance dans deux dialectes des Grisons

This article deals with the agreement system of two dialects spoken in southern Switzerland. In both, FPL agreement is marked by the suffix -n, which is a reflex of the 6th person verbal ending. In Bregagliotto, the more conservative dialect of the two, -n occurs in the second position of FPL NPS (FPL and FSG NPs are otherwise identical). In Mesolcinese, -n occurs on all inflected elements that agree with a feminine plural controller (including finite verbs), except definite articles and subject clitics.

Semantica ed etimologia dell’armeno hnjan ‘vasca in cui si preme l’uva’

The article deals with the Armenian substantive hnjan, which in the modern language denotes the ‘wine-press’ or a ‘rural hut located on the fields’. An exam of its use in the texts of classical age where it is attested (the translation of the Bible and the History of Armenians of Agathangelos) allows to recognize an original meaning of ‘hole dug for the squeezing and the fermentation of the grapes’. The etymology proposed connects the word with Sanskrit paṅka- ‘mud, mire, dirt, clay; ointment; moral impurity’, and a German cognate represented by Old High German fūhti, fūht, Anglo-Saxon fūht ‘damp, moist’, the German source of the Romance loanwords Italian, fango, French fange, Catalan fanc ‘mud, mire’.

Osservazioni sull’uso di yád in antico indiano

This paper considers the placement of the complementizer yád within the sentence and the functional value of yád in Old Indian. It will be noted that thecomplementizer yád, like other subordinating conjunctions in some ancient and modern Indo-European languages, can be preceded by a topicalized or a focalized phrase in its clause. In particular, in R̥gVeda there are many cases where yád is preceded by an element which seems to have moved from inside the sentence and also cases where yád is preceded by the inflected verb. Morover, some cases will be discussed showing the use of yád to introduce clauses governed by verbs of saying and knowing, both in Vedic and in Sanskrit, and a possible syntactic analysis of these structures.

La comunicazione diplomatica tra Istanbul e Venezia nel XV e XVI sec.: fenomeni di contatto interlinguistico e comportamenti pragmalinguistici

Modern Mediterranean is a multicultural and multilingual environment where written communication shows a high variability. The present work aims atshedding light on a specific set of Greek documents dating from the 15th and 16th century and belonging to the collection Miscellanea Documenti Turchi of the Venetian State Archive. It proposes that, by analysing the lexical variability, the textual patterns and the pragma-linguistic features of such documents, their production can be explained within the framework of a text community which develops within a community of practice.