Indo-European Research Articles

Linguistic anomalies in the language of patients with schizophrenia

In terms of thought disorder, the language of patients with schizophrenia itself could be a valuable resource. Some valuable studies on the language of patients with schizophrenia have been performed. However, most such studies have been confined to English-speaking countries, or at least those where Indo-European languages are spoken. Therefore, we investigated linguistic anomalies in the language of Korean patients with schizophrenia. Short texts written by 69 patients with schizophrenia from a single mental hospital and matched normal control participants were analyzed. We evaluated these texts in terms of semantic and syntactic errors. Then, we compared the error rates adjusted for text length between patients and normal control participants. We also divided the patients with schizophrenia into two groups by their duration of illness and compared these two groups to investigate the relationship between the duration of illness and linguistic anomalies. The patients with schizophrenia committed a total of 1.86 (2.52) semantic errors and 1.37 (1.79) syntactic errors per 100 characters, which were significantly more frequent than errors committed by normal control participants. Furthermore, there was a notably high number of semantic errors relative to syntactic errors in the language of patients with schizophrenia. Our study results are consistent with previous studies from English-speaking countries, implying that the linguistic anomalies of patients with schizophrenia are not confined to a single language. Because language is essential in mental function, further research on linguistic anomalies in patients with schizophrenia is recommended.

Relationship between the Kartvelian Roots *γwn- ‘wine’ and *γun - ‘creep, curve, twist’ Rusudan Asatiani, Marine Ivanishvili & Ether Soselia

Thomas Gamkrelidze &Viacheslav Ivanov’s fundamental work, based on lexical borrowings and structural-typological similarities of the Indo-European, Kartvelian, and Semitic Proto-Languages, confirms that the Georgians (Kartvelian tribes) together with the representatives of ancient civilizations (Indo-Europeans and Semites) historically belong to the same chronological stage. In this respect, the lexical units denoting ‘wine’ in the above-mentioned languages, being the subject of much research, seem very notable. The views on the Kartvelian origin of the respective stems are as old as that of considering the Kartvelian form as an Indo-European borrowing. Various viewpoints exist because the reasonable etymology of the stem has not been established based on Kartvelian data. The paper examines the Common-Kartvelian stem *γvin- ‘wine’, reconstructed by the comparison of Georgian, Megrelian, Laz, and Svan (resp. Kartvelian languages) linguistic data. Taking into account that the root represents a regular form defined by the rules of Kartvelian ablaut alternations, it is possible to regard this form as a Kartvelian stem derived from the verb *γun- denoting ‘creep, curve, twist’, and not as an Indo-European borrowing, as it used to be accepted. Thus, another linguistic-typological parallel between Kartvelian and Indo-European languages has been revealed at the lexical level. Keywords: Kartvelian languages, Indo-European languages, Semitic languages, Comparative-Historical linguistics, Kartvelian ablaut patterns, the lexeme wine

Impersonal Constructions Between Personae and ‘Personlessness’. Strategies of Language Manipulation in Aeschines and Demosthenes

Abstract This paper investigates the distribution of different types of impersonal constructions in Attic oratory and focuses on the data taken from two political speeches, i. e., Aeschines’ Against Ctesiphon (speech 3) and Demosthenes’ On the Crown (speech 18). The topic of impersonal constructions in Ancient Greek has not yet received much attention from scholars, with the exception of some studies devoted to singular aspects, e. g., the semantics and morphosyntax of impersonal verbs and the comparison with other Indo-European languages. No attention has been paid to the analysis of textual distribution of impersonal constructions and to the effects that impersonal constructions produce in communicative terms. This paper aims at filling the gap, by analysing different types of clauses under the umbrella of impersonal constructions. Some of them are usually recognised as impersonal constructions, while others are not. Constructions are of three types: the first includes constructions with impersonal verbs, e. g., δεῖ, δοκεῖ, etc., which are to be compared with the corresponding personal constructions. The second group contains some non-personal uses of grammatical persons, namely the non-referential uses of the first person plural and the clauses with indefinite subject τις. Finally, the third type includes constructions with non-human subjects, which display no-agreement in number between the verb and its external argument. The purpose of the paper is twofold. On the one hand, it aims at contributing to the debate on ancient Greek impersonal constructions; on the other hand, it investigates the role played by impersonal linguistic strategies in building the contents of forensic speeches and conveying the messages that orators wanted to communicate to the audience.

Languages, Scripts, and Chinese Texts in East Asia

Languages, Scripts, and Chinese Texts in East Asia

The timing point of exercise intervention regulates neuropathic pain-related molecules in the ipsilateral dorsal root ganglion neurons after sciatic nerve injury.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether the timing of tread-mill exercise application can control expression levels of neuropathic pain- and regeneration-related proteins in the ipsilateral lumbar 4 (L4) to 6 (L6) dorsal root ganglion cells (DRG) after sciatic nerve injury (SNI). The experimental rats were randomly divided into five groups: the normal control, SNI+sedentary (IS), exercise+SNI (EI), SNI+exercise (IE), exercise+SNI+exercise (EIE) groups. The rats in exercise groups per-formed treadmill exercise at a speed of 8 m/min for 30 min once a day during 14 days before and/or after SNI. For investigating the expression of specific neuropathic pain and regeneration-related proteins in DRG, we prepared L4 to L6 DRG in the ipsilateral side. In the quantitative analysis, growth associated protein 43 (GAP-43) and brain-derived neurotrophic factor levels were further increased in the ipsilateral DRG at all treadmill exercise groups than those in IS group. In the histological findings, GAP-43 was qualitatively increased IE and EIE groups than IS group at DRG. Wnt3a and β-catenin were dramatically downregulated in EIE and IE groups than IS groups. In addition, nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells and tumor necrosis factor-α were significantly decreased in IE and EIE groups than IS group in the ipsilateral DRG. Our findings suggested novel information that regular low-intensity exercise before and/or after SNI might be a therapeutic and preventive approaches for relieving neuropathic pain and improving axonal elongation after peripheral nerve injury.

Онлайн-словник плюрицентричної угорської мови

A pluricentric language is a language that is used in at least two countries where it has the official status of a state, commonwealth or regional language with at least partially its own (codified) norms that usually contribute to the personal identity of speakers. Pluricentric languages have one dominant variant and (one or) several non-dominant varieties. As a result of the political fragmentation of the Hungarian language area that developed after the First World War, and then, confirmed by the peace treaties after the Second World War, the Hungarian language is one of the pluricentric languages in Europe. The article examines the results of close linguistic contacts in non-dominant varieties of the modern Hungarian language used outside Hungary. The consequences of language contacts are highlighted on the basis of lexical borrowings, which are fixed in a specific online dictionary. The dictionary consists of borrowed words of foreign origin used by autochthonous Hungarian minorities living in the Carpathian Basin outside Hungary. In addition to words and phrases that are used exclusively in the speech and writing of Hungarians in countries neighboring Hungary, words that are also used in Hungary, but with a different meaning, were also collected in the database. As of the end of September 2022, the dictionary database contained 5,034 dictionary entries (words). Since this online loanword list contains direct borrowings from many languages of the Carpathian Basin that are in contact with Hungarian (mostly from the official or state languages of Hungary's neighboring countries, including Slovak, Ukrainian, Romanian, Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian, and German), the database is a rich source for the study of contacts between Hungarian and Indo-European languages. Based on the material of the online dictionary, it was found that among the lexical borrowings of the Hungarian language –as a result of centuries-old contacts between Hungarian and various Slavic languages –borrowings of Slavic origin constitute the largest layer of vocabulary of foreign origin in the Hungarian language. The result of the project is a dictionary database that provides an opportunity for a comparative analysis of the vocabulary of non-dominant variants of the pluricentric Hungarian language.

Neolithic genomic data from southern France showcase intensified interactions with hunter-gatherer communities

Archaeological research shows that the dispersal of the Neolithic took a more complex turn when reaching western Europe, painting a contrasted picture of interactions between autochthonous hunter-gatherers (HGs) and incoming farmers. In order to clarify the mode, the intensity, and the regional variability of biological exchanges implied in these processes, we report new palaeogenomic data from Occitanie, a key region in Southern France. Genomic data from 28 individuals originating from six sites spanning from c. 5,500 to c. 2,500 BCE allow us to characterize regional patterns of ancestries throughout the Neolithic period. Results highlight major differences between the Mediterranean and Continental Neolithic expansion routes regarding both migration and interaction processes. High proportions of HG ancestry in both Early and Late Neolithic groups in Southern France support multiple pulses of inter-group gene flow throughout time and space and confirm the need for regional studies to address the complexity of the processes involved.

Coordination strategies in Messapic

Abstract Messapic, like many ancient Indo-European languages, shows evidence for the existence of more than one coordinating conjunction. Alongside an inherited Indo-European clitic =ti, comparable to Lat. =que or Gk. =τε, Messapic has also grammaticalised an additional coordinator anda from a lexical source. Although the two conjunctions are found in some strikingly similar contexts, this paper argues that they also show noteworthy functional differences, which can plausibly be contextualised against a broader cross-linguistic understanding of how novel coordinators grammaticalise. In this way, the typological study of coordination has the potential to contribute further insights into this fascinating—and as yet insufficiently understood—epigraphic language.

Coordination strategies in Messapic

Abstract Messapic, like many ancient Indo-European languages, shows evidence for the existence of more than one coordinating conjunction. Alongside an inherited Indo-European clitic =ti, comparable to Lat. =que or Gk. =τε, Messapic has also grammaticalised an additional coordinator anda from a lexical source. Although the two conjunctions are found in some strikingly similar contexts, this paper argues that they also show noteworthy functional differences, which can plausibly be contextualised against a broader cross-linguistic understanding of how novel coordinators grammaticalise. In this way, the typological study of coordination has the potential to contribute further insights into this fascinating—and as yet insufficiently understood—epigraphic language.

Category of politeness in Indo-European languages: comparative aspect 
 (based on English, German, Russian, and Urdu)

The article discusses the functioning of the category of politeness in Russian, English, German, and Urdu. The relevance of the research topic is stipulated by the need to explore similarities and differences of Western and Eastern linguacultures in terms of forms of politeness and speech etiquette in the context of globalization and intercultural communication. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the fact that it represents an original attempt to compare the means of expressing the category of politeness with regard to European and Urdu content. The article studies grammatical, lexical, and orthographical means of expressing politeness which demonstrate a certain social hierarchy revealed in speech acts. Descriptive, structural, and comparative methods are used in the research. The objective of the study is to establish the major similarities and differences in the usage of the means of expressing politeness in the languages under analysis. The study examines the concepts of speech etiquette, сommunication postulates and social factors determining the choice of a particular verbal means of expressing politeness in a certain communication context as well as the means of expressing politeness as such. The results of the study show that lexical means of expressing politeness tend to be universal for all of the chosen languages and they are represented by lexical units added to the sentence specifically with the aim of making it sound more polite. Conversely, grammatical means of expressing politeness are peculiar to every language and are expressed mainly by the usage of a certain verb form or a modal verb. Orthographical means of expressing politeness are found to be characteristic of the analysed European languages only.

Indo-European cereal terminology suggests a Northwest Pontic homeland for the core Indo-European languages.

Questions on the timing and the center of the Indo-European language dispersal are central to debates on the formation of the European and Asian linguistic landscapes and are deeply intertwined with questions on the archaeology and population history of these continents. Recent palaeogenomic studies support scenarios in which the core Indo-European languages spread with the expansion of Early Bronze Age Yamnaya herders that originally inhabited the East European steppes. Questions on the Yamnaya and Pre-Yamnaya locations of the language community that ultimately gave rise to the Indo-European language family are heavily dependent on linguistic reconstruction of the subsistence of Proto-Indo-European speakers. A central question, therefore, is how important the role of agriculture was among the speakers of this protolanguage. In this study, we perform a qualitative etymological analysis of all previously postulated Proto-Indo-European terminology related to cereal cultivation and cereal processing. On the basis of the evolution of the subsistence strategies of consecutive stages of the protolanguage, we find that one or perhaps two cereal terms can be reconstructed for the basal Indo-European stage, also known as Indo-Anatolian, but that core Indo-European, here also including Tocharian, acquired a more elaborate set of terms. Thus, we linguistically document an important economic shift from a mostly non-agricultural to a mixed agro-pastoral economy between the basal and core Indo-European speech communities. It follows that the early, eastern Yamnaya of the Don-Volga steppe, with its lack of evidence for agricultural practices, does not offer a perfect archaeological proxy for the core Indo-European language community and that this stage of the language family more likely reflects a mixed subsistence as proposed for western Yamnaya groups around or to the west of the Dnieper River.

Degree of Lexical Similarity between English and Kurdish

Indo-European languages are the native languages of the habitants of south and west Eurasia. It is the largest spoken language family in the world with 3.5 billion speakers, corresponding to 46% of the world population. Kurdish and English are genetically related, belong to the same family branch of languages, and are believed to have evolved from a common proto-language. Lexical Similarity measures the similarity and/or difference between a set of words from any given two languages. Despite the abundance of lexical similarity coefficients between various world languages in the literature, there are no available data on Kurdish, even though many Kurdish natives learn English as L2. The objective of this paper is to estimate the lexical similarity between two remotely related Indo-European languages. Our results showed (8.75%) and (9.75%) lexical similarity between English and Kurdish according to the Leipzig-Jakarta and Swadesh lists respectively; giving the average of (9.25%). In conclusion, English and Kurdish languages are related Indo-European languages and the lists used in this research are proven to be reliable in the comparison between the studied languages. These cognates can be helpful for the learners and teachers of Kurdish and Kurdish in their language acquisition process.

General and specific traits in the folklore and ritual life of the peoples of the Caucasus (ethnolinguistic aspect)

The article deals with the cultural connections between the speakers of Caucasian and Iranian(Ossetian) languages which reflect the flexibility of the language as well as cultural values and preferences. These connections are revealed through main rituals such as the ritual of killing old people to prevent them from a disgraceful death by age, funeral and wedding rituals, as well as ritual object and their names. The authors aim at establishing the common and unique traits in the ritual and cult life of the peoples of the Caucasus. The research proved that the life of the Caucasian peoples constituted a cultural unity. It was determined both by the internal life of the peoples and the common source of cultural and language loan, namely the multilanguage Caucasus inhabited by Iranian, Caucasian, Turkic, Arabic and Indo-European language speakers. The authors underline and analyse the resemblance of different elements of rituals and study the linguistic parallels in ritual and cult texts. The comparative -typological analysis reveals many common traits in the studied rituals, the verbal representation of which reflects to which extent the traditional values are preserved in the culture and contributes to interpretation of the semantics and symbolic of the ritual text.

Effects of Home Language and Socioeconomic Status on Modern Standard Written Chinese Literacy

Home language (HL) effects on academic language literacy have been extensively discussed. However, previous research has mostly focused on Indo–European languages. This study extends the literature by using data ( n = 17,600) collected in a diversified language area: Guangxi, China. We examined the effects of four HLs and four socioeconomic factors by using modern standard written Chinese literacy as an outcome across three developmental levels (ages 10.45, 12.31, and 14.72). School clustering effect existed and adding the predictors of HL and socioeconomic status did not change the variance proportion in literacy performance accounted for by the school groupings. The findings indicate that (a) Putonghua-only speakers performed poorest in school Grades 5 to 6 and 7 to 8, (b) dominant Putonghua speakers performed best in Grades 7 to 8, (c) heritage-only speakers performed best in Grades 5 to 6, and (d) the contribution of the parents’ socioeconomic factors depended on the participants’ developmental levels. Our study supports the bilingual literacy advantage and explains why a heritage-only acts as a type of bilingualism.

The Luwic inflection of proper names, the Hittite dative-locative of i- and iia̯ -stems, and the Proto-Anatolian allative

Abstract The article establishes the inflection of proper names in Luwian and Lycian, which differs from appellative inflection in all oblique cases. It is argued that the locative, genitive and ablative were reshaped after the pattern of the ā-stems, which were the most frequent type in names. The characteristic dative *-Vi̯o, however, was generalised from the i-stems, whose type had become restricted to names, especially personal names, after the PD i-stems had been generalised in the appellatives. The origin in the i-stems appears from Hittite, which has a corresponding ending in i- and ii̯a-stems. In Hittite, the ending can be traced back further to the use of the allative in dat.-loc. function to circumvent the unfortunate combination of a stem in *‑i‑ with the dat.-loc. ending *-i. The Luwic data can now be used to determine the character of the PAnat. allative, which must have been *-o on account of Lyc. -e. Since Anatolian shows a vigorous allative that is presupposed by petrified remnants such as *pr-o ‘forward’ in other IE languages, the allative provides an additional argument for the Indo-Anatolian hypothesis.

Take up your arms

Abstract This article investigates the etymology of four Latin lexemes starting with /arm-/: arma, armus, armilla and armenta. It examines whether they are men- or mo-derivatives of the root commonly reconstructed as *h₂er- ‘to join’. The combination of an in-depth analysis of 1) the use of armenta in Latin, and ἀραρίσκω and ἁρμόζω in Greek, and 2) similar stems in other IE languages, particularly Vedic īrmá-, Latvian ir̃mi et al., OCS ramo and jarьmъ et al., results in the conclusion that two stems should be differentiated. Armus and the other IE words for ‘shoulder; arm’ point to a second laryngeal and go back to a mo-stem ‘joining, (shoulder) joint’, originally an adjective. Its substantivation process went along with a change in accentuation and ablaut. The middle laryngeal would be the result of a contamination with *pĺ̥h₂-meh₂. The other Latin words and OCS jarьmъ et al. go back to a men-stem ‘the attachment’. The armenta were originally ‘the ones belonging to the attachment (a yoke)’ > ‘the plough animals’. Lastly, it is stated that if ἅρμα was a direct men-derivative of the PIE root, the wheel should be interpreted as ‘the attachment (to the chariot frame)’ rather than ‘the thing joined together’.

Greek τηλεκλυτός ‘far-famed’ and its Welsh comparanda

Abstract The paper examines a possible Welsh cognate of Greek τηλεκλυτός ‘farfamed’, the rare Middle Welsh pellglot, and analyses it and its alleged Greek congener within the framework of Indo-European poetic language studies. It pays considerable attention to the conventions of medieval Welsh versification that (with other factors considered) may undermine the dating of the reconstructed compound underlying the Greek and Middle Welsh word to the Proto-Indo-European epoch.

The Political Status of Iran During the Parthian Empire (247BC-224AD)

The Parthians are one of the peoples and forces that lived in Iran and were able to form a state in the ancient East between the years (247 BC - 224 AD). Studies differed about their ethnic origin. However, some research indicated that they are Indo-European peoples. Though the Parthian-Roman relations were normal at the beginning, the Romans began stretching to the East. The interior and exterior tensions of the Parthian Empire, especially with the Romans, lead to the gradual destruction of the Parthians. Therefore, these tensions are counted as the main causes of the state’s collapse. The Parthian kings were chosen from the Aristocracy. Economically, the Parthians were powerful. Their coins witness the Parthians’ five-century sovereignty and cultural impact over the entire land of Iran. In this research, their political role in Iran and the ancient East was discussed. The research has been divided into two sections. The first section is devoted to the naming and ethnicity of the Parthians, and defining the borders of their state. As for the second section, the political developments in Iran during the Parthian era were discussed.

What makes the dative-experiencer construction in Modern Hebrew different from its counterparts in European languages?

AbstractThe paper proposes a usage-based account of a largely productive pattern of dative experiential sentences in Modern Hebrew that stand in contra-distinction to their parallels in Indo-European languages. In the pattern under consideration, the dative-Experiencer is non-topical, following an invariable predicate in masculine singular form. The paper seeks to prove that the construction in Hebrew is essentially a subjectless construction. Its origin is traced back to Biblical Hebrew, but its proliferation in present-day language is assumed to be contact-facilitated by a parallel subject-like dative-Experiencer construction widespread in Slavic and Yiddish languages.

Adaptation of Melodic Intonation Therapy to a Tone Language: A Pilot Study of Tone-Rhythmic Therapy in Mandarin Chinese

Introduction: Although melodic intonation therapy (MIT) has proven effective in individuals with non-fluent aphasia in a variety of western languages, its application to Mandarin-speaking aphasic patients has not been thoroughly studied. The adaptation is complicated because Mandarin Chinese is a tone language with specific prosodic elements that differ from Indo-European languages. This study developed a Chinese-specific variant of MIT, i.e., tone-rhythmic therapy (TRT), and tested its efficacy in individuals with non-fluent aphasia. Methods: Six non-fluent aphasic patients were recruited; all of them were admitted to the study over 6 months after stroke and had received a standard program of language therapy. In the current research, tone and rhythmic practice were incorporated into the training procedures, and the adaptation was then examined in patients. The TRT treatment lasted 6 weeks, with five 50-min sessions per week. The Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination (BDAE) and the Functional Assessment of Communication Skills for Adults (FACS) tests were used to measure the change in the speech and language skills of patients. Results: The results showed that the patients had increased BDAE and FACS scores after intervention, and the treatment effect lasted for 6 months. Discussion: The modified MIT proved effective for Mandarin-speaking patients with non-fluent aphasia with lasting effects. Further studies evaluating its efficacy are needed for other types of aphasia and other tone languages.