Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
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The present thesis will deal with the proto-Indo-European anaphoric and relative pronouns, and their possible shared origin. The discussion will be based on a large repertoire of relevant lexical...Show moreThe present thesis will deal with the proto-Indo-European anaphoric and relative pronouns, and their possible shared origin. The discussion will be based on a large repertoire of relevant lexical entries from the whole Indo-European family, to reconstruct the most accurate pronominal paradigm and its phonology. This overhauled paradigm will be studied to extrapolate a relative chronology that will help to clarify the steps of its creation in pre-Proto-Indo-European and its differentiation between the relative and anaphoric pronoun. In the final chapters, the anaphoric pronoun will be analyzed under the lenses of the ergative theory and will be compared with the verbal augment, to determine whether they derive from the same hypothetical deictic particle. Finally, the pre-Proto-Indo-European reconstruction of the anaphoric pronoun will be compared with the Proto-Uralic pronominal repertoire to determine whether it was inherited from Proto-Indo-Uralic.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
The question of the genealogical proximity of Italic and Celtic has been an issue in Indo-European linguistics for a long time. Whereas most previous studies have looked at the innovations possibly...Show moreThe question of the genealogical proximity of Italic and Celtic has been an issue in Indo-European linguistics for a long time. Whereas most previous studies have looked at the innovations possibly shared by Italic and Celtic from a Proto-Indo-European perspective, this work takes a more bottom-up approach by attempting to reconstruct (parts of) the Proto-Italo-Celtic language on the basis of the attested linguistic data in both branches’ daughter languages. The areas under focus are Italo-Celtic phonology and verbal morphology. As the Italo-Celtic reconstructions of both of these sub-systems of the language are substantially different for the systems traditionally reconstructed for Proto-Indo-European, I will argue that there is good reason to posit Italo-Celtic as a genetic unit that must have lasted for a substantial amount of time.Show less
In this thesis, I will study the structure of two constructed Slavic interlanguages from different eras : Ruski Jezik, created by Juraj Križanić in the middle of the 17th century, and Interslavic,...Show moreIn this thesis, I will study the structure of two constructed Slavic interlanguages from different eras : Ruski Jezik, created by Juraj Križanić in the middle of the 17th century, and Interslavic, a contemporary project led by Vojtěch Merunka. I will discuss the different solutions they offer to tackle the issues of mutual intelligibility amongst the native speakers of Slavic languages. In part one, I will examine the factors of mutual intelligibility and different approaches to Slavic mutual intelligibility. In part two, I will review the common and divergent features of Slavic languages in different areas, and analyse the grammars of both interlanguages in order to discuss the solutions they bring to issues in mutual intelligibility.Show less
