Joseph Eska
Virginia Tech, English: Language, Literature, and Culture, Faculty Member
- Language Change, Celtic Linguistics, Historical Linguistics, Theoretical Linguistics, Indo-European Linguistics, Celtic Studies, and 35 moreAncient Indo-European Languages, Protohistoric Iberian Peninsula, Proto Indo-European, Tartessos, Celtic Languages, Diachronic Linguistics (Or Historical Linguistics), Historical Morphology, Latin Epigraphy, Indo-European Studies, Germanic linguistics, Indo-european language reconstruction, Indoeuropean Studies, Celtiberian, Comparative Linguistics, Historical Phonology, Historical Syntax, Syntax, Latin linguistics, Generative Syntax, Italic Languages, Proto-Indo-European reconstruction, Diachronic Syntax, Word order, Gaulish language, Indo-European, Comparative Indo-European Linguistics, cultura di Golasecca, Hallstadt, Golasecca, Golasecca Culture, Golasecca-Kultur, Lepontic, Pictish Language, Lusitanian language, Lusitanian language, Indo-European linguistics, epigraphy, and Celtic Linguistics, Pre Roman Archaeology/Iberian Culture, Celtiberian, Celtic Languages and Cultures, "Tartessian" Language, Lusitanian language, Hispano-Celtic Languages, Tartessian Languageedit
This paper continues a series of treatments of sound changes in the Celtic languages that have not been satisfactorily or fully explained to date. Sound changes that occurred in proto-Brittonic and early Welsh are treated: (3) the shift... more
This paper continues a series of treatments of sound changes in the Celtic languages that have not been satisfactorily or fully explained to date. Sound changes that occurred in proto-Brittonic and early Welsh are treated: (3) the shift of */j/ > /ð/ / ˈVr_V in proto-Brittonic; (4) the shift of the group *-/nthL/- > -/θL/- in Old Welsh; (5) the evolution of the group */lthr/ in Welsh.
This paper reviews the inscriptions engraved in the Alphabet of Lugano discovered at the apparently votive site of Carona (Bergamo), which probably date to the third through first centuries bc. Though they have been known about for over a... more
This paper reviews the inscriptions engraved in the Alphabet of Lugano
discovered at the apparently votive site of Carona (Bergamo), which
probably date to the third through first centuries bc. Though they have
been known about for over a decade, they have not been intensively
investigated, nor have their linguistic features been integrated into what
is known about Cisalpine Celtic. This paper takes some first steps in
those directions based upon the inscriptions published through 2014.
discovered at the apparently votive site of Carona (Bergamo), which
probably date to the third through first centuries bc. Though they have
been known about for over a decade, they have not been intensively
investigated, nor have their linguistic features been integrated into what
is known about Cisalpine Celtic. This paper takes some first steps in
those directions based upon the inscriptions published through 2014.
This paper argues that the inscription engraved in the Alphabet of Lugano in sinistrograde ductus at the so-called Mur d’Hannibal (Liddes, Valais, Switzerland) should be read as Poenino | ieur{e}u ‘he dedicated to P.’ The first form is a... more
This paper argues that the inscription engraved in the Alphabet of Lugano in sinistrograde ductus at the so-called Mur d’Hannibal (Liddes, Valais, Switzerland) should be read as Poenino | ieur{e}u ‘he dedicated to P.’ The first form is a thematic dative singular. The desinence may well be Latin, but a case is made that it could be a Celtic desinence that displays a regional phonological development. The fourth character of the second form is a reversed Roman open Я, well attested in Cisalpine and Transalpine Celtic epigraphy. This form also displays a token of dittography, a phenomenon attested elsewhere in the Continental Celtic epigraphic corpus.
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Acoustic and electropalatographic data on the so-called Hiberno-English ‘slit-t’ are reported, and the implications these data have for an adequate transcription are discussed. Previous transcription suggestions highlight the difficulty... more
Acoustic and electropalatographic data on the so-called Hiberno-English ‘slit-t’ are reported, and the implications these data have for an adequate transcription are discussed. Previous transcription suggestions highlight the difficulty posed by the lack of an IPA diacritic for tongue shape. We conclude that the adoption of an alveolar diacritic (as used in the extensions to the IPA for transcribing disordered speech) could get round these difficulties.
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This paper argues that the inscription engraved in the Alphabet of Lugano in sinistrograde ductus at the so-called Mur d’Hannibal (Liddes, Valais, Switzerland) should be read as Poenino | ieur{e}u ‘he dedicated to P.’ The first form is a... more
This paper argues that the inscription engraved in the Alphabet of Lugano in sinistrograde ductus at the so-called Mur d’Hannibal (Liddes, Valais, Switzerland) should be read as Poenino | ieur{e}u ‘he dedicated to P.’ The first form is a thematic dative singular. The desinence may well be Latin, but a case is made that it could be a Celtic desinence that displays a regional phonological development. The fourth character of the second form is a reversed Roman open Я, well attested in Cisalpine and Transalpine Celtic epigraphy. This form also displays a token of dittography, a phenomenon attested elsewhere in the Continental Celtic epigraphic corpus.
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While etymological nasals in inherited /VN.T/ sequences are normally noted in Hispano-Celtic homoörganically to the heterosyllabic plosive, two other orthographic practices are attested in the corpus: (a) the nasal is not noted at all; ... more
While etymological nasals in inherited /VN.T/ sequences are normally noted in Hispano-Celtic homoörganically to the heterosyllabic plosive, two other orthographic practices are attested in the corpus: (a) the nasal is not noted at all; (b) the nasal is noted heteroörganically to the plosive. These practices have always been treated as discrete phe- nomena. In this paper, all three practices are united as symptoms of a single phonological process whose varying outcomes are the product of differences in the timing of the gesture which articulates the place of the nasal.
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This paper seeks to demonstrate that the grammatical entities traditionally known as the infixed and suffixed pronouns of the early Insular Celtic languages were synchronically no such thing, but had evolved to become object agreement... more
This paper seeks to demonstrate that the grammatical entities traditionally known as the infixed and suffixed pronouns of the early Insular Celtic languages were synchronically no such thing, but had evolved to become object agreement affixes. Verbs which bore such affixes were polypersonal, inflected for both subject and object agreement, a circumstance that is common in human languages in all parts of the world save for Eurasia, though it is hardly unknown there, too. This paper makes use of extensive cross-linguistic data to demonstrate what object agreement can look like and how it can manifest itself in the languages of the world. Current theoretical models of syntax are employed to illustrate the growth of object agreement from Continental Celtic and its continuing expansion throughout the early history of Irish, in particular, until the advent of the regular use of independent object pronouns in Middle Irish caused the phenomenon of object agreement to cease to exist. Introductory matters §1. Students of the early Insular Celtic languages, particularly Old Irish, have to come to terms with a number of features that are exotic within the Indo-European family, among which are the conjugated prepositions and the so-called infixed and suffixed pronouns. This paper seeks to demonstrate that the latter were not synchronically referential and had evolved to become object agreement morphemes. The verbs to which these morphemes are affixed, in fact, are polypersonal, inflected for both subject and object agreement. Although quite exotic – though hardly otherwise unknown – within the * An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Twenty-seventh Harvard Celtic Colloquium, 5–7 October 2007. I should like to thank the members of that audience, and especially Jürgen Uhlich and an anonymous referee, for their helpful comments. All usual disclaimers apply. 1 I am not the first to make this claim. WAGNER 1959: 152–182 passim and GENSLER 1993: 213–215 = 2007: 183–184 attribute the growth of object agreement to contact with a substratal, probably Hamito-Semitic, language. SCHMIDT 1972: 91–92 makes a typological comparison of the structure of the early Insular Celtic verb with that of Adyghe, a member of the Circassian branch of the Abkhaz-Adyghe languages spoken in the Adygea Republic in southwestern Russia and the surrounding region in which object agreement is coded on the verb. DOI10.1515/zcph.2010.004
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Early Celtic clausal configuration § 1. There is now consensus that the unmarked clausal configuration of proto-Celtic was SOV with pro-drop of the loose type, ie, non-core arguments could surface post-verbally and various constituents... more
Early Celtic clausal configuration § 1. There is now consensus that the unmarked clausal configuration of proto-Celtic was SOV with pro-drop of the loose type, ie, non-core arguments could surface post-verbally and various constituents (or their components, in certain instances) could move leftwards for various discourse purposes. This is the situation in Hispano-Celtic (e. gg., Schmidt 1976; Eska 1994: 17-18; Gorrochategui 1994: 308; Meid 1996: 257-258= 1997: 400; 1997: 397-398), e. gg.: 1 (1) a. Unmarked configuration(MLH ...
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Page 1. Giuliano Bernini Paolo Ramat Negative Sentences in the Languages of Europe A Typological Approach Mouton de Gruyter Page 2. Page 3. Page 4. Page 5. Negative Sentences in the Languages of Europe w DE G This One H6WG-4K4-OCAD Page... more
Page 1. Giuliano Bernini Paolo Ramat Negative Sentences in the Languages of Europe A Typological Approach Mouton de Gruyter Page 2. Page 3. Page 4. Page 5. Negative Sentences in the Languages of Europe w DE G This One H6WG-4K4-OCAD Page 6. ...
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Why does language change? Why can we speak to and understand our parents but have trouble reading Shakespeare? Why is Chaucer's English of the fourteenth century so different from Modern English of the late twentieth century that the... more
Why does language change? Why can we speak to and understand our parents but have trouble reading Shakespeare? Why is Chaucer's English of the fourteenth century so different from Modern English of the late twentieth century that the two are essentially different languages? Why are Americans and English 'one people divided by a common language'? And how can the language of Chaucer and Modern English - or Modern British and American English - still be called the same language? The present book provides answers to questions like these in a straightforward way, aimed at the non-specialist, with ample illustrations from both familiar and more exotic languages. Most chapters in this new edition have been reworked, with some difficult passages removed, other passages thoroughly rewritten, and several new sections added, e.g. on language and race and on Indian writing systems. Further, the chapter notes and bibliography have all been updated.
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Bergin’s Rule constructions, whereby verbs in Old Irish occur in other than normal clause-initial position and with ‘conjunct’ flexion in simplex verbs and ‘prototonic’ stress in compound verbs, has traditionally been viewed as evidence... more
Bergin’s Rule constructions, whereby verbs in Old Irish occur in other than normal clause-initial position and with ‘conjunct’ flexion in simplex verbs and ‘prototonic’ stress in compound verbs, has traditionally been viewed as evidence for the language’s prehistoric clausal configuration, usually considered to be SOV or, more recently, V2. Others view the construction as entirely artificial, i.e., as not reflecting any historical reality, perhaps based on Latin models. This paper demonstrates that the difficult evidence emphatically does not support a V2 analysis, but is otherwise indeterminate. The conjunct flexion of simplex verbs and the prototonic stress of compound verbs used in the construction is also diagnostic of the fact that it is not simply the result of scrambling the normal VSO clausal configuration of Old Irish, but represents vestiges of real syntax.
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Bringing the advances of theoretical linguistics to the study of language change in a systematic way, this innovative textbook demonstrates the mutual relevance of historical linguistics and contemporary linguistics. Numerous case studies... more
Bringing the advances of theoretical linguistics to the study of language change in a systematic way, this innovative textbook demonstrates the mutual relevance of historical linguistics and contemporary linguistics. Numerous case studies throughout the book show both that theoretical linguistics can be used to solve problems where traditional approaches to historical linguistics have failed to produce satisfying results, and that the results of historical research can have an impact on theory. The book first explains the nature of human language and the sources of language change in broad terms. It then focuses on different types of language change from contemporary viewpoints, before exploring comparative reconstruction - the most spectacular success of traditional historical linguistics - and the problems inherent in trying to devise new methods for linguistic comparison. Positioned at the cutting edge of the field, the book argues that this approach can and should lead to the re...
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Dans cet article, l'A. etudie l'inscription lepontique, tenant lieu de dedicace, figurant sur un vase trouve a Carcegna di Miasino et datant de la periode pre-romaine. Il s'interesse plus particulierement au mot uenia,... more
Dans cet article, l'A. etudie l'inscription lepontique, tenant lieu de dedicace, figurant sur un vase trouve a Carcegna di Miasino et datant de la periode pre-romaine. Il s'interesse plus particulierement au mot uenia, traditionnellement interprete comme un nom propre feminin et s'interroge sur les fondements de cette interpretation
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After providing an analysis of Celtic phonology as per the approach to phonology known as Laryngeal Realism, this paper addresses the differing realizations of the two mutations common to Goidelic and Brittonic, the first lenition and... more
After providing an analysis of Celtic phonology as per the approach to phonology known as Laryngeal Realism, this paper addresses the differing realizations of the two mutations common to Goidelic and Brittonic, the first lenition and nasalization. It is proposed that differences in interarticulatory timing between consecutive segments led to the attested differing realizations of these mutations. Some attention is also paid to the differing realizations of nasalization between Irish and Scottish Gaelic.
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Hypothese nouvelle sur le genitif singulier des themes thematiques en celtibere : la differenciation des genres masculin et neutre au nominatif a pu se produire aussi au genitif en donnant deux desinences distinctes, masc. -o et neutre -os.
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The Celtic text of the Latin-Cisalpine Celtic bilingual inscription from Vercelli possesses a graphemic sequence without equivalent in the Latin text. Lejeune suggests that it is an abbreviation and notes that its resolution is uncertain.... more
The Celtic text of the Latin-Cisalpine Celtic bilingual inscription from Vercelli possesses a graphemic sequence without equivalent in the Latin text. Lejeune suggests that it is an abbreviation and notes that its resolution is uncertain. He wonders whether it could be the Cisalpine Celtic cognate of Lat. ex voto 'by vow' and bear, however coincidentally, the same initials, or even a 'latinisme graphique'. Subsequent commentators, however tentatively, have adopted this view. In this paper, we argue that there are a series of epigraphic reasons which render this analysis untenable, canvas other possibilities, and suggest a Latin model for a loan translation which finds support from Insular Celtic evidence.
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Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: Special Session on Indo-European Subgrouping and Internal Relations (1998)
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Información del artículo A syncretism in fieri in early Celtic.
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SUMMARYThis article treats the development of the dual flexional system of the Early Irish verb, whereby verbs in absolute initial position in the clause and those preceded by any of the null position elements traditionally called... more
SUMMARYThis article treats the development of the dual flexional system of the Early Irish verb, whereby verbs in absolute initial position in the clause and those preceded by any of the null position elements traditionally called conjunct particles followed different flexional patterns; some attention is also paid to the absence of expected phonological mutations after initial preverbs. The dual flexional system is found to be the result of syntactic movement within the verbal complex; the system proposed has the advantage of also explaining why the responsive and imperative categories of the verbal system largely do not particpate in the dual system.RÉSUMÉCet article traite du developpement du double systeme flexionnel du verbe en vieil irlandais, ou les verbes en position initiale absolue dans la clause et ceux precedes par quelques elements en position nulle, traditionnellement ap-peles particules conjonctives, sont flechis de favon differente. On traite ici egalement de l'a...
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... A Typological Evaluation of Celtic/Hamito-Semitic Syntactic Parallels. PhD dissertation, University of California Berkeley. ... Extracts from A Typological Evaluation of Celtic/Hamito-Semitic syntactic parallels. In Raimund Karl and... more
... A Typological Evaluation of Celtic/Hamito-Semitic Syntactic Parallels. PhD dissertation, University of California Berkeley. ... Extracts from A Typological Evaluation of Celtic/Hamito-Semitic syntactic parallels. In Raimund Karl and David Stifter (eds.), The Celtic World, vol. ...
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§ 3. We note in Eska & Mercado 2005: 169, adopting an observation by Solinas 1995: 371, that PelKui-DAT. SG falls outside of the chiastic structure, illustrated in (3), in which the remainder of the inscription participates. The... more
§ 3. We note in Eska & Mercado 2005: 169, adopting an observation by Solinas 1995: 371, that PelKui-DAT. SG falls outside of the chiastic structure, illustrated in (3), in which the remainder of the inscription participates. The nominative arguments of the two clauses are inter-
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Includes some text in Celtic. Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Toronto, 1988. Includes bibliography.
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... [JOSEPH F. ESKA, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.] ... in which they occur, J demonstrates the endemicity of antonyms (suggesting that as many as one in 50 sentences contains cooccurring antonyms) and calls into... more
... [JOSEPH F. ESKA, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.] ... in which they occur, J demonstrates the endemicity of antonyms (suggesting that as many as one in 50 sentences contains cooccurring antonyms) and calls into question traditional notions of anto-nymy as a ...
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There are some issues, and bilingualism is one of them, that have been mainstays in the scholarly dialogue of classicists and historical linguists for cen-turies. This interest has been fueled in part by the frequent references to Greek/... more
There are some issues, and bilingualism is one of them, that have been mainstays in the scholarly dialogue of classicists and historical linguists for cen-turies. This interest has been fueled in part by the frequent references to Greek/ Latin bilingualism in the ancient record, ...
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This paper examines the three principal environments in which spirantisation occurs in all of the Brittonic languages: (a) as fricatives which ultimately continue geminate aspirated voiceless plosives; (b) as the result of various... more
This paper examines the three principal environments in which spirantisation occurs in all of the Brittonic languages: (a) as fricatives which ultimately continue geminate aspirated voiceless plosives; (b) as the result of various triggering forms that cause the spirant mutations; and (c) after liquids. It is argued that these changes — long a vexed problems of Brittonic diachronic phonology — fall out naturally when one adopts a Laryngeal Realism view of Celtic phonology, under which the plosive series are not contrasted via the laryngeal feature [voice] but via the feature [spread glottis], i.e. the phonological contrast between the plosive series is /ph th kh/ vs. /p t k/.
This paper initiates a series of treatments of sound changes in the Celtic languages that have not been satisfactorily or fully explained to date. After providing an orientation to method, two sound changes that occurred in the Brittonic... more
This paper initiates a series of treatments of sound changes in the Celtic languages that have not been satisfactorily or fully explained to date. After providing an orientation to method, two sound changes that occurred in the Brittonic languages are treated: (1) the shift of *[x] > /j/ / _t; and (2) the shift of */j/ > /ð/ / ˈ{e, i}._V.
This paper argues that the evolution of proto-Brittonic final *-/lt h / >-/lθ/ >-/ɬt/ in Welsh is the result of the metathesis of the feature [spread glottis] from the final coronal fricative to the lateral approximant with well known... more
This paper argues that the evolution of proto-Brittonic final *-/lt h / >-/lθ/ >-/ɬt/ in Welsh is the result of the metathesis of the feature [spread glottis] from the final coronal fricative to the lateral approximant with well known concomitant phonetic changes that devoiced and fricated the lateral approximant while occluding the coronal fricative.
This paper proposes that the clausal configuration of affirmative root clauses in the medieval Brit-tonic languages is best characterised as a token of a relaxed verb-second (V2) language, in which the verb can appear as late as sixth... more
This paper proposes that the clausal configuration of affirmative root clauses in the medieval Brit-tonic languages is best characterised as a token of a relaxed verb-second (V2) language, in which the verb can appear as late as sixth position in the clause, but can be preceded by no more than a single argument. The absolute restriction to only a single argument occurring before the verb is related to the evolution of medieval Brittonic V2 from a cleft structure. There are, in fact, tokens of two arguments appearing before the verb in all of the medieval Brittonic languages, but these are exclusively the result of poetic overdetermination.
This paper examines the proto-Celtic plosive system through the lens of Laryngeal Realism. Drawing upon phonetic data from contemporary Celtic languages and philological data from medieval Insular Celtic and ancient Continental Celtic... more
This paper examines the proto-Celtic plosive system through the lens of Laryngeal Realism. Drawing upon phonetic data from contemporary Celtic languages and philological data from medieval Insular Celtic and ancient Continental Celtic languages, it concludes that the active Laryngeal feature in these languages is not [voice], but [spread glottis], and that this feature should be projected back to proto-Celtic. Such an analysis allows for a much more straightforward analysis of the evolution of the early Celtic plosive system, and, in particular, allows for a non-stipulative analysis of perhaps the best known of Celtic sound changes, the loss of proto-IE */p/, in simple aerodynamic terms. It is
demonstrated, furthermore, that the loss of proto-IE */p/ cannot be explained by contact with pre-Basque or Iberian, but, instead, was, in all likelihood, a natural development.
with pre-Basque or Iberian, but, instead, was, in all likelihood, a natural development.
demonstrated, furthermore, that the loss of proto-IE */p/ cannot be explained by contact with pre-Basque or Iberian, but, instead, was, in all likelihood, a natural development.
with pre-Basque or Iberian, but, instead, was, in all likelihood, a natural development.