29.1953, Diss: Parthian; Classical Armenian; Historical Linguistics; Sociolinguistics; Syntax; Text/Corpus Linguistics: Robin Meyer: ''Iranian-Armenian language contact in and before the 5th century CE. An investigation into pattern replication and societal multilingualism''

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-29-1953. Tue May 08 2018. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 29.1953, Diss: Parthian; Classical Armenian; Historical Linguistics; Sociolinguistics; Syntax; Text/Corpus Linguistics: Robin  Meyer: ''Iranian-Armenian language contact in and before the 5th century CE. An investigation into pattern replication and societal multilingualism''

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Date: Tue, 08 May 2018 12:17:16
From: Robin Meyer [robin.meyer at ling-phil.ox.ac.uk]
Subject: Iranian-Armenian language contact in and before the 5th century CE. An investigation into pattern replication and societal multilingualism

 
Institution: University of Oxford 
Program: D.Phil. in Comparative Philology and General Linguistics 
Dissertation Status: Completed 
Degree Date: 2017 

Author: Robin Meyer

Dissertation Title: Iranian-Armenian language contact in and before the 5th
century CE. An investigation into pattern replication and
societal multilingualism 

Dissertation URL:  https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:38e2dcfa-4051-4e5f-a761-844526cc6449

Linguistic Field(s): Historical Linguistics
                     Sociolinguistics
                     Syntax
                     Text/Corpus Linguistics

Subject Language(s): Armenian, Classical (xcl)
                     Parthian (xpr)


Dissertation Director(s):
Theo Maarten van Lint
Elizabeth Tucker

Dissertation Abstract:

This study provides new insights into the historical language contact between
Classical Armenian and West Middle Iranian, specifically Parthian. Next to an
up-to-date account of known lexical, morphological, and phraseological Iranian
loans in Armenian, the discussion focuses on one major and three minor
syntactic patterns which, it is argued, are the result of pattern replication.

The major pattern, the Classical Armenian periphrastic perfect, has previously
been the focus of numerous papers owing to its unusual construction: while
intransitive verbs construe with nominative subjects and an optional form of
the copula in subject agreement, transitive verbs exhibit genitive agents,
accusative objects and an optional copula in a invariable 3.Sg form. Based on
a discussion of morphosyntactic alignment patterns in general, and of Armenian
and West Middle Iranian in particular, it is shown that previous accounts
cannot satisfactorily explain the syntax of the perfect. In a new approach, it
is argued that Armenian exhibits tripartite morphosyntactic alignment as the
result of 'copying' and adapting the ergative alignment pattern of the West
Middle Iranian past tense. This analysis is supported both by the historical
morphology of the perfect participle and by a corpus analysis of five major
works of Armenian 5th-century historiography.

The minor patterns—ezāfe-like nominal relative clauses, subject resumption and
switch-reference marking using the anaphoric pronoun Arm. ink'n, and the
quotative use of Arm. (e)t'ē—are equally linked to parallel constructions in
West Middle Iranian, which may have served as syntactic models for their
Armenian counterparts.

The final part of the study discusses the Armenian–Iranian relationship from a
language contact point of view and, making use of historical, epigraphic, and
literary sources, proposes that a superstrate shift of the Parthian-speaking
ruling class of Armenia to Armenian as their primary language best explains
the amount of Parthian linguistic material and patterns in Armenian.




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