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EDITOR’S PREFACE
This collection of papers on Indo-European themes is presented to Anna Morpurgo Davies to mark her retirement from the Chair (now the Diebold Chair) of Comparative Philology at the University of Oxford, a position that she has held with signal distinction since 1971.
At that time comparative philology was offered by a few Oxford undergraduates as a special subject in Classical Honour Moderations, and the Diploma in Comparative Philology attracted just the occasional graduate student. Over the last thirty-three years, under Anna’s direction, the subject has come to exert awide appeal, with ever-increasing numbers taking philology options at all levels in the Classics courses and a substantial group of graduate students reading for the specialist taught M.Phil. or a doctorate in some aspect of Indo-European studies. Characteristically, Anna has never been content merely with the formal teaching of her graduate students; in 1972, for instance, she instituted ‘Philological Lunches’, which have since taken place weekly during term before the Comparative Philology Graduate Seminars, at which staff, students, and visitors meet in relaxed surroundings to discuss not only philological news but also matters of greater moment such as the relative merits of different national styles of cake.
Anna has also vigorously promoted the study of General Linguistics within the University, being largely instrumental in the establishment of the Chair in that subject (and in its preservation during difficult times), and she has also fought many battles at the national level to safeguard linguistic specialisms within the university system. Her achievements on behalf of Linguistics as a whole were recognized by the award in 2000 of an Honorary DBE. Nor has this been the limit of Anna’s activities within Oxford: she has been, among other things, an active and valued member of several Boards, a Curator of the Bodleian Library, and a Delegate of the Oxford University Press.
Anna’s retirement thus provides a suitable occasion for this volume, yet a glance at the contents will at once show that this is not simply an internal Oxford tribute. Ever since the appearance of her Mycenaeae Graecitatis Lexicon in 1963, Anna has enjoyed an international reputation as a rigorous and perceptive scholar. Her many publications—principally on Mycenaean Greek, other dialects of Ancient Greek, Hieroglyphic Luwian, and the history of nineteenth-century linguistics—have transformed whole areas of Indo-European studies.
All of this has earned Anna the respect and admiration of Indo-Europeanists and other linguists throughout the world. Even more strikingly, Anna’s warmth and encouragement and sense of fun have also won her their affection. When I was approaching potential contributors to this volume and having to explain that there was a very tight schedule, time and again the reaction was at first a cry of despair at the impossibly short notice but then an instant capitulation—‘but of course I must do it for Anna’. These then are papers by former pupils and colleagues, who are all proud also to be able to call themselves Anna’s friends.
Some of those who would very much have liked to contribute to this volume were in the end unable to do so (for a variety of reasons, ranging from ill health to the editor’s failure to make early enough contact because his address book was out of date); they include Andrew Garrett, Theo van den Hout, Stanley Insler, Alex Leukart, and Elisabeth Rieken, whose names may be taken to stand here as the nucleus of what would have been an immense tabula gratulatoria had we decided to print one.
I should like to express my warm thanks to John Davey, of Oxford University Press, who has offered enthusiastic encouragement and ready help from the very first mention of this book as a project, and to John Waś, who as copy-editor and typesetter has throughout provided invaluable editorial guidance in addition to showing the most scrupulous care for detail.
Oxford / J.H.W.P.
June 2004
Two Notes from OUP
Anna Morpurgo Davies was the Delegate responsible for linguistics in the Delegacy—the body charged by the University with the task of vetting the books proposed for publication by its press—for twelve years from 1992 to 2004 and, by her advocacy, advice, and judgement, did more than any other to advance OUP’s publishing in the subject. Endlessly knowledgeable, undogmatic, critical, constructive, perceptive, good-humoured, and tolerant, Professor Davies was the kind of asset publishing editors dream of. She will be very much missed.
John Davey
Anna’s formal involvement with the Oxford English Dictionary began in 1994, when she was invited to become a member of the dictionary’s Advisory Committee. The Advisory Committee consisted of a number of eminent language specialists, and had a dual function: firstly, to assist the editors of the dictionary in the formulation of editorial policy for the new edition; secondly (and more generally), to ensure that the University Press’s extensive investment in the dictionary was properly managed.
In both of these areas Anna was expertly qualified. As a Delegate of the University Press, and as a member of the Press’s Finance Committee, she was well used to seeking solutions which ideally married scholarly ideals with practical resources. As a linguist her natural interests lie with the etymological component of the OED, but the rigour of her approach to etymology carries over easily into other editorial fields: semantics, pronunciation, defining style, etc.
What has perhaps surprised the editorial team most about Anna’s characteristic approach is not so much her academic precision as her concern for the well-being of the dictionary’s sta. Her many years of teaching and supervision convinced her that you cannot conduct a major dictionary research project simply by tight planning, highly skilled editors, and excellent resources. Throughout the long process the editors must be well motivated and well managed, and Anna has consistently been at pains to ensure that this was precisely what happened. The initial fruits of her long and continuing association with the OED were seen in March 2000, when the first entries of the new edition were published online, and she will leave her mark on the dictionary for many years to come.
John Simpson
Part one
Indo-European
1
Il perfetto indoeuropeo tra endomorfismo ed esomorfismo
Paolo Di Giovine
1 Introduzione
Nel campo degli studi di linguistica storica si sono raggiunti importanti risultati per quanto riguarda la ricostruzione morfologica in riferimento alla fase indoeuropea preistorica da un lato, e alla storia dei diversi gruppi linguistici dall’altro. In questo senso, l’illustrazione di categorie flessionali come il presente (nelle sue diverse forme atematiche e tematiche, dal presente radicale a quelli con infissi e suffissi), l’aoristo (radicale, sigmatico, raddoppiato), il causativo, il perfetto, ecc., ha consentito di tracciare un quadro organico, pur se in vari punti controverso, della morfologia verbale indoeuropea comune;1 contributi di analogo interesse sono venuti nel campo della morfologia nominale.
Una volta acquisita—nei limiti consentiti dal procedimento della ricostruzione linguistica—la conoscenza del punto di origine delle diverse categorie flessionali, ›e pi›u agevole operare nel senso opposto, e vedere come ciascun gruppo linguistico abbia modificato, formalmente e funzionalmente, le caratteristiche proprie delle categorie originarie. In questo senso,mi pare ancora poco indagato un aspetto particolare delmutamento dalla fase preistorica alle singole lingue storiche indoeuropee: quello che attiene alla struttura formale, in rapporto alla distribuzione del carico funzionale tra i diversi morfemi (radice, infissi, espansioni della radice, affissi—prefissi e suffissi—e desinenze). È uno sviluppo molto interessante anche da un punto di vista tipologico, in quanto permette un confronto tra fasi linguistiche nelle quali si manifestano ricorrenti fenomeni di spostamento del carico funzionale dal nucleo verso la periferia (o addirittura verso l’esterno) della forma considerata.
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1 Non ›e possibile, nei limiti del presente lavoro, elencare i numerosissimi contributi relativi al sistemaverbale apparsi inriferimento all’indoeuropeoricostruitoo alle lingue storiche maggiormente conservative; per una bibliografia—ovviamente non piu› aggiornatissima—rinvio a Di Giovine (1996: 277–305).
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