The paper adopts and further elaborates on the distinction between comparative concepts (CC) and descriptive categories (DC) by proposing a partly new definition of the parts of speech (PoS), and uses that definition to provide a new... more
The paper adopts and further elaborates on the distinction between comparative concepts (CC) and descriptive categories (DC) by proposing a partly new definition of the parts of speech (PoS), and uses that definition to provide a new analysis of PoS in Latin and RV Sanskrit. More, specifically, the paper shows that in Latin three major classes of morphemes are found (nouns, adjectives and verbs), whereas in the RV only two major classes are found (verbal roots and nouns) and the typical "adjective" is a derived stem built on a verbal root meaning a quality (i.e., roughly a nominalization). The data described are then used to contribute to the CC debate in the field of PoS, by showing its relation with historical Indo-European linguistics, by critically analysing traditional labels such as noun, adjective, verb, root, stem and lexeme, and by questioning the alleged incommensurability between CCs and DCs.
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Nominal compounds are almost entirely lacking in the ancient and classical Semitic languages, while they are relatively frequent in the modern Semitic languages. Particularly, they are well attested in all Modern Aramaic varieties,... more
Nominal compounds are almost entirely lacking in the ancient and classical Semitic languages, while they are relatively frequent in the modern Semitic languages. Particularly, they are well attested in all Modern Aramaic varieties, especially in the North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic languages, spoken by Christians and Jews around North-West Iran and South-West Turkey. In these languages, the presence of nominal compounds is correctly attributed to the contact of these languages with Kurdish and New Persian, together with many other non-Semitic features. This paper argues that the presence of nominal compounds is not an innovation of the modern Neo-Aramaic languages, because compounds began to appear already in Classical Syriac, where they are to be attributed to the contact with Greek and Middle Persian. The great amount of Greek and Iranian compounds borrowed into Syriac fostered the formation of indigenous compounds through the crystallization of older sequences in the construct state or in the d-construction. If we are right in arguing that the formation of compounds in Classical Syriac is due to the contact with Greek and Middle Persian, this can be considered a further contact phenomenon confirming that borrowing between typologically different languages can happen, even in the case of slight or mid-slight structural borrowing, as long as a sufficiently long time span, fairly strong cultural pressure, and a large group of multilingual speakers are given
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In alcuni lavori recenti (Alfieri 2016, 2018, in stampa a, b) è stata identificata una profonda differenza tipologica tra il sistema delle parti del discorso del latino e del sanscrito vedico. In latino ci sono tre classi principali di... more
In alcuni lavori recenti (Alfieri 2016, 2018, in stampa a, b) è stata identificata una profonda differenza tipologica tra il sistema delle parti del discorso del latino e del sanscrito vedico. In latino ci sono tre classi principali di morfemi primari (nomi, verbi e aggettivi); in vedico ce ne sono solo due (nomi e radici verbali), e la funzione tipica dell'aggettivo (il modificatore che indica una qualità) è svolta da strutture di tipo participiale o da nominalizzazioni, i.e. da temi aggettivali secondariamente derivati a partire da radici verbali che indicano qualità. In questo caso, ci proponiamo di riprendere in mano i dati contenuti in quei lavori per mostrare che la linea di divisione che separa la morfologia derivazionale e il lessico è diversa in latino e in vedico e che questa diversità è il risultato di un mutamento tipologico a livello delle parti del discorso realizzatosi in latino ma non ancora in vedico (i.e. la lessicalizzazione di una classe di aggettivi "pr...
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The history of the derivatio, the grammaticae rationales, and the synchrony-diachrony confusion between the XVII and the XVIII century. It is usually assumed that between the 16th and the 18th centuries language sciences included three... more
The history of the derivatio, the grammaticae rationales, and the synchrony-diachrony confusion between the XVII and the XVIII century. It is usually assumed that between the 16th and the 18th centuries language sciences included three main research lines: works on language origin; practical grammars and philosophical grammars. This view has been countered by Alfieri (2019), who showed that between the 13th and the 16th centuries philosophical grammars comprised two types of works which were substantially different as for their settlement on the time axis, as well as for their theory of derivatio. In this case the hypothesis in Alfieri (2019) will be taken up, showing that also in the 17th and 18th centuries philosophical grammars included two groups of works: a-chronic grammars that exclude data on word-formation; pan-chronic grammars that describe data on word-formation with special attention, but interpret these data only sub specie originis linguae. KEYWORDS: History of linguist...
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It is usually assumed that between the 16th and 18th centuries language sciences were divided into three main research lines: studies on language origin, practical grammars and “philosophical” grammars. At the same time, scholars working... more
It is usually assumed that between the 16th and 18th centuries language sciences were divided into three main research lines: studies on language origin, practical grammars and “philosophical” grammars. At the same time, scholars working on the history of word-formation have never discussed the link between the history of word-formation, “philosophical” grammars and the synchrony/diachrony confusion. The present paper thus aims to show that the “philosophical” grammars comprise two types of works which are substantially different as for their settlement on the time axis and their theory of word-formation. The first group includes a-chronic grammars which develop a semantic-metaphysical theory of word-formation or exclude data on word-formation completely, e.g. the Modistae’s grammaticae speculativae and Port Royal’s Grammaire. The second group includes pan-chronic grammars that describe data on word-formation, but interpret these data only sub specie originis linguae, e.g. Scaliger’...
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The threefold division noun-verb-adjective is often considered a hallmark of the IE family from the remote PIE phase. However, Alfieri (2016, 2018, forth.) claims that this view is incorrect: while in Latin three major classes of lexemes... more
The threefold division noun-verb-adjective is often considered a hallmark of the IE family from the remote PIE phase. However, Alfieri (2016, 2018, forth.) claims that this view is incorrect: while in Latin three major classes of lexemes are found (nouns, verbs and adjectives), in the Sanskrit language of the Rig Veda only two major classes are found (verbal roots and nouns) and the most typical “adjective” (i.e. the Quality Modifier) is a derived stem built on a verbal root meaning a quality. As a consequence, a deep and previously neglected typological change should be reconstructed in the IE family, namely the lexicalization of the adjective class and the change from a parts of speech (PoS) system “without” adjectives and quality concepts verbally encoded, which is still preserved in the RV, to a PoS system with “true” adjectives, which is found in Latin and in almost all other, especially modern and Western, IE languages. In this case, the data in Alfieri (2016, 2018, forth.) ar...
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This collection of essays by young specialists in linguistic disciplines addresses the oldest – and yet still topical – issues in the debate on language. It also includes a contribution by the famous Russian semiologist Boris Uspenskij... more
This collection of essays by young specialists in linguistic disciplines addresses the oldest – and yet still topical – issues in the debate on language. It also includes a contribution by the famous Russian semiologist Boris Uspenskij (pupil, friend and collaborator of L. Hjelmslev, R. Jakobson and M. Lotman). Valentina Martina explores the relation between the plane of linguistic meanings and reality through an analysis of the concept of "system". The article by Artemij Keidan addresses the problem of the definition of deixis and its role in the disambiguation of proposition, with special reference to structuralism and contemporary theories on direct reference. The work of Luca Alfieri takes its cue from recent studies on cognition to demonstrate the unsustainability of the Jacobsonian dichotomy of metaphor and metonymy. Rounding off the book is an essay by Boris Uspenskij on the role of personal pronouns in the structure of language, in semiotics and in human communicat...
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The present paper aims at describing the contemporary socio-linguistic situation of the Persian area in term od diglossia (§ 1-2), thus disproving Ferguson's position (1959). Prosodic features of New Persian are examined: the syllabic... more
The present paper aims at describing the contemporary socio-linguistic situation of the Persian area in term od diglossia (§ 1-2), thus disproving Ferguson's position (1959). Prosodic features of New Persian are examined: the syllabic structure of the literary standard (Kstabi) has been compared with the syllabic structure of the Tehran dialect, the latter representing the new colloquial standard. What emerged is the presence of isoglosses between the new colloquial standard and the early New Persian documents in Dari, which differentiate both varieties from the literary standard (§ 3-7). The syllable of the colloquial standard does not represent an innovation, in spite of previous interpretations: as a matter of fact, such a syllabic structure was already attested in Dari, although rejected by the literary variety due to the Arabic influence. In our final considerations the advantage of adopting a sociolinguistic approach in the field of historical linguistics is stated (§ 8).
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This paper seeks to analyze the translation of grammatical terminology. One of the main differences between the Greek-Latin parts of speech theory and that of traditional later European linguistics (from Port Royal onwards) lies in the... more
This paper seeks to analyze the translation of grammatical terminology. One of the main differences between the Greek-Latin parts of speech theory and that of traditional later European linguistics (from Port Royal onwards) lies in the existence of the adjective as an independent word class. The paper examines the definitions of the categories of noun, verb and epithet/adjective from Dionysius Thrax through the 17th century, with the aim of showing that the birth of the adjective as an independent word class, along with the stabilization of the labels nomen substantivum and adjectivum with reference to the common noun and the adjective, hides a problem in meta-semiotic translation. Specifically, the issue concerns the translationreinterpretation of Aristotle’s metaphysics in light of Neo-platonic ontology during the Middle Ages, as well as its influence on the reinterpretation-translation of the Greek-Latin parts of speech theory between Late Antiquity and the Renaissance.
Research Interests: History of Linguistics, Languages and Linguistics, Historical Linguistics, Typology, Sanskrit language and literature, and 12 moreIndo-European Studies, Sanskrit, Vedic Sanskrit, Linguistics, History of Linguistic Thought, Indo-European Linguistics, Linguistic Typology, Sanskrit Grammar and Linguistics, Vedic Studies, Proto Indo European, Ancient Indo European Languages, and Open Linguistics
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The term root can represent both a diachronic and a synchronic unit. The antecedent of a set of etymologically related forms is a diachronic root (D-root); the input form for productive word-formation rules is a synchronic root (S-root).... more
The term root can represent both a diachronic and a synchronic unit. The antecedent of a set of etymologically related forms is a diachronic root (D-root); the input form for productive word-formation rules is a synchronic root (S-root). While the difference between D-root and S-root is (almost) uncontroversial, the definition of the S-root in itself is quite problematic. In fact, the S-root can be defined as: i) a primary lexical morpheme, without specifying its category or type; ii) a primary lexical morpheme that coincides with a word minus inflection and, more specifically, with a simple verb stem; iii) a primary lexical morpheme that differs from a word minus inflection and, more specifically, from a simple verb stem. A comparison between the adjectival encoding in Latin and in a corpus of 51 Rig-Vedic hymns shows that only option iii) is acceptable. In Latin 3 major classes of lexical morphemes are found (nouns, verbs and adjectives) and the most typical adjective is a simple adjectival stem, while in the RV only two major classes are found (verbal roots and nouns) and the most typical adjective is a derived stem built on a verbal root meaning a quality. Therefore, the simple verb stem is the lexical morpheme on which the most typical verb is built (in addiction to some nouns and adjectives), but the root is the lexical morpheme on which the most typical verb and the most typical adjective are built (in addiction to some nouns).