35.1883, Review: The Aeolic Dialects of Ancient Greek: Scarborough (2023)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-35-1883. Thu Jun 27 2024. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 35.1883, Review: The Aeolic Dialects of Ancient Greek: Scarborough (2023)

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Date: 27-Jun-2024
From: Jean-François Mondon [jfmondon at gmail.com]
Subject: Historical Linguistics: Scarborough (2023)


Book announced at https://linguistlist.org/issues/34.2122

AUTHOR: Matthew Scarborough
TITLE: The Aeolic Dialects of Ancient Greek
SUBTITLE: A Study in Historical Dialectology and Linguistic
Classification
SERIES TITLE: Brill's Studies in Indo-European Languages & Linguistics
PUBLISHER: Brill
YEAR: 2023

REVIEWER: Jean-François Mondon

SUMMARY

Matthew Scarborough’s recent book, The Aeolic Dialects of Ancient
Greek: A Study in Historical Dialectology and Linguistic
Classification, is the twenty-sixth volume in Brill’s successful
series, Studies in Indo-European Languages and Linguistics. In this
most recent installment of the series, Scarborough wades into the
morass that is Greek dialectology. In a study which originated as his
2016 University of Cambridge dissertation, Scarborough offers a
data-rich exposition into the quagmire of the reality of the Aeolic
subgroup of Ancient Greek.

His approach is twofold. He first strives to dissect and assess the
strength of features shared by Lesbian, Thessalian, and Boeotian – the
three dialects traditionally classified as Aeolic – as well as those
traits shared either by pairs of those three or by any of those three
and another Greek dialect. Upon reviewing, analyzing, and proposing
which shared features he deems legitimate, Scarborough offers a
statistical method for a probability-based clade test. His conclusion
lends support to the existence of an Aeolic branch, though it offers
no internal subgrouping of that branch. The 369-page book concludes
with a catalogue of epigraphic references, tables of Aeolic dialectal
isoglosses, a bibliography, and a word index.

EVALUATION

The book consists of five chapters. The first chapter, entitled “The
Problem of Aeolic in Ancient Dialectology,” is a thorough literature
review. Beginning with what the Greeks themselves had to say on the
topic, Scarborough summarizes the work of 19th century scholars such
as Richard Meister and Otto Hoffmann, who had both argued
affirmatively for an Aeolic branch. He then turns to 20th century
scholarship, in which the decipherment of Linear B added some
confusion to the Greek dialect picture. Nonetheless, it did not
greatly impinge upon the belief in an Aeolic subbranch, which was
still assumed by Warren Cowgill (1963). A more unique position from
the same time, however, was William Wyatt’s (1970) highly speculative
proposal that the Greek dialectal differences can be traced back to
class distinctions in prehistory. Specifically, Wyatt maintained that
West Greek emanated from the speech of aristocrats whereas Aeolic had
its origins in the speech of peasants. Scarborough rightly rejects
this position for lack of evidence directly linking sociolinguistic
registers to particular varieties, acknowledging though that “Wyatt
was correct to observe that language contact phenomena,
sociolinguistic variation, and wave propagation must have played a
role in dialectal differentiation” (p. 19). Another piece of 20th
century scholarship, work begun by José-Luís García Ramón’s 1975 opus,
is introduced in this first chapter, making its appearance frequently
thereafter in the rest of the book. García-Ramón had argued not just
for an Aeolic branch, but for a subclade consisting of Thessalian and
Lesbian to the exclusion of Boeotian. His stringent adherence to a
family tree model, Scarborough points out, proves difficult to
maintain a Thessalian-Lesbian subbranch, since it does not readily
account for features shared between Boeotian and Thessalian. Moving to
the 21st century, Scarborough summarizes the recent scholarship,
spending ample time on Andrew Garrett’s idea of convergence.
Effectively, isoglosses that had hitherto been used to propose
intermediate steps in the development of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) to
the daughter languages can rather be viewed as areal developments
between dialects in contact. Garrett’s approach has not gained much
support (cf. de Vaan 2008, Clackson 2015), and Scarborough also comes
down negatively on it. Finally, he introduces Holt Parker’s 2008 work
arguing against an Aeolic branch. Scarborough’s main contention with
Parker is the latter’s assumption that shared innovations cannot
always be reliable and should be discarded in dialectology.
Scarborough argues that this is counter to Hennig’s Auxiliary
Principle (1966), which states, as paraphrased by Scarborough, “unless
there is good reason to suspect a feature of being convergent, it
should be assumed to be inherited” (p. 34).

Chapter 2, “Methodological Preliminaries,” is a short chapter which
lays out the assumptions needed for selecting the isoglosses necessary
to evaluate the Aeolic hypothesis quantitatively. He lays out the
difference between various phylogenetic terms, focusing on the only
one relevant to classifying dialects descended from Proto-Greek: new
synapomorphies. A synapomorphic character is a feature which is an
innovation between dialects. This effectively mimics Leskien’s
Principle (1876):
 “The criteria for a closer common-relationship can only be found in
positive correspondences of the languages concerned, which are also
deviations from the others.” (p. 43 – Scarborough’s translation).

Contra Parker (2008) and Ringe (2014, 2016), Scarborough maintains
that selections from inherited alternatives must also be included in
calculating dialect subgrouping. He claims that such forms
“nevertheless contribute to a cumulative argument” (p. 45).
Scarborough also takes issue with Parker’s insistence on using only
significant innovations and not easily repeatable ones. Such an
approach, Scarborough claims, restricts the amount of usable data. The
chapter concludes with a description of the data sources, focusing
primarily on Lesbian, whose earliest attestations are not epigraphic
as is the case for Thessalian and Boeotian. Instead, they come from a
literary tradition (Sappho and Alcaeus), which in theory could have
been subject to borrowing of forms from other dialects. Since the
epigraphic corpus is so small for Lesbian, Scarborough insists that it
is imperative to include these literary data, cautiously assuming the
forms are authentic unless there is specific reason not to on a
case-by-case basis.

In Chapter 3, “The Core Aeolic Isoglosses”, Scarborough meticulously
inspects the litany of phonological and morphological similarities
shared by Boeotian, Lesbian, and Thessalian, judging whether each such
similarity is secure enough to be included in his clade test. Besides
giving ample discussion to the pros and cons of the strength of each
purported isogloss, Scarborough cites the individual attestations of
each instantiation, doubtless a useful collection of data for any
subsequent scholar looking for a specific form. Of the phonological
isoglosses traditionally listed as proof of an Aeolic branch,
Scarborough accepts two: the early occurrence of labialization and
subsequent lack of palatalization as the reflex of the labiovelars
(pp. 85-92), as in Thessalian pettares ‘four’ v. Attic tettares, and
the development of or/ro from syllabic *r (pp. 92-107), as in
Thessalian orsen ‘male’ v. Attic are:n. He rejects as not being useful
for the clade test both the lowering of *i to *e following *r (pp.
107-108) and the loss of syllabicity of prevocalic *i (pp. 108-110).
As for morphological isoglosses, he accepts three. The first is the
innovation of a consonant-stem dative plural morpheme -essi (pp.
110-117). As for its origin, he favors Wackernagel’s (1903) analogy
with a- and o-stems, whose dative plurals were analyzed as simply
adding -si to the nominative plural forms: ‘mousai, lukoi : mousai-si,
lukoi-si :: the:res : X, where X was innovated ‘the:res-si.’ The
second morphological isogloss included in Scarborough’s clade test is
the existence of a thematic perfect active participle in -o:n, -ontos
instead of the reflex of the PIE perfect active participle suffix
*-wos-/-us-, as seen in Mycenaean a-ra-ru-wo-a ‘fitted’ (pp. 117-120).
The final positive morphological isogloss is the generalization of
-men as the ending of the 1st plural in lieu of -mes (pp. 120-122).
Lexically he accepts for his clade test the generalization of ‘hi-’
into the feminine paradigm of the numeral ‘one’ as compared to ‘mi-’
in non-Aeolic dialects. He follows Parker (2008) in explaining the
form ‘hi-’ as the phonological reflex of an oblique stem *smy- which
was reduced to *sy- in late PIE (as attested in Indo-Iranian forms
such as ‘tasya:h’ < to-smyeh2-s) and subsequently generalized in
Aeolic throughout the feminine paradigm (pp. 122-126). He rejects,
however, the patronymic adjectival suffix -ios (pp. 127-9), since its
use as a patronymic prior to Proto-Greek cannot be ruled out (cf. its
use in Latin Seruius ‘son of a slave’ and Gaulish Oulloneos ‘son of
Willonos’).

Chapter 4, “The Peripheral Aeolic Isoglosses”, concentrates on
isoglosses between two of Boeotian, Lesbian, and Thessalian, as well
as supposed isoglosses between any one of those and another Greek
dialect. The intent is to ascertain those isoglosses which could be
used to determine sub-classification within an Aeolic branch.
Scarborough comes down in favor of including five isoglosses; three
are lexical and two morphological. The three lexical ones all concern
unique prepositional forms: apu (as opposed to apo) and on- (as
opposed to an-) in Thessalian and Lesbian, as well as peda (in place
of meta) in Boeotian and Thessalian. Morphologically, he accepts the
present active infinitive -men (in place of -ein) and aspirated third
plural endings such as -nthai (instead of -ntai), both shared by
Boeotian and Thessalian. The chapter is rich with discussions of
historical quagmires, such as the origin of the modal particles ke,
an, and ken (pp. 150-155) as well as of the athematic inflection in
so-called verba vocalia (pp. 136-142).

Chapter 5, “A Probability-Based Clade Test for Aeolic”, explicates the
math of Scarborough’s clade test and discusses the results. He
concludes that the Aeolic branch was a probabilistically likely branch
which descended from Proto-Greek. Additionally, while the clade test
cannot demonstrate any sub-branching within the Aeolic branch, the
agreements between Boeotian and Thessalian presented in Chapter 4 lead
Scarborough to posit that Proto-Lesbian reasonably split first within
the Aeolic branch.

In sum, Scarborough’s book is a welcome addition to the world of Greek
Dialectology. Aside from collecting the forms relevant to the Aeolic
question in a single volume, Scarborough is generous in his discussion
of prior scholarship on the topic as well as on each particular
phonological, morphological, and lexical isogloss. Whether one accepts
his ultimate conclusions, he lays out his views and the reasoning
behind them clearly. The only very noticeable drawback to the book is
the not infrequent number of instances of ungrammatical English
phrases. As an example, the first sentence of Chapter 5 lacks the
subject ‘there’: “From Chapters 3 and 4, we have seen that are a
number of innovatory isoglosses” (p. 212). While frequent, such
infelicities in no way impede the comprehension of the text.

REFERENCES

Clackson, James. 2015. Subgrouping in the Sabellian branch of
Indo-European. Transactions of the Philological ASociety 113. 4-37

Cowgill, Warren. 1963. Ancient Greek dialectology in the light of
Mycenaean. In H. Birnbaum & J. Puhvel (eds.), Ancient Indo-European
dialects: Proceedings of the conference on Indo-European Linguistics
held at the University of California, Los Angeles April 25-27, 163,
77-95. Berkeley: University of California Press.’

García Ramón, José-Luís. 1975. Les origines postmycéniennes du groupe
dialectal éolien. Salamanca: Édiciones Universidad de Salamanca.

Hennig, Willi. 1966. Phylogenetic systematics. Urbana: University of
Illinois Press.

Parker, Holt. 2008. The linguistic case for the Aiolian migration
reconsidered. Hesperia 77. 431-464.

Ringe, Donald. 2014. Ancient Greek dialect subgrouping: a
reconsideration. Lecture handout. The Gray Lectures, May 20, 2014,
Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge.

Ringer, Donald. 2016. The nature of the South Greek dialect group. In
A.M. Byrd, J. DeLisi & M. Wenthe (eds.) Tavet Tat Satyam: Studies in
honor of Jared S. Kelin on the occasion of his seventieth birthday,
278-283. Ann Arbor: Beech Stave Press.

de Vaan, Michiel. 2008. Review of Clackson 2007. Lingua 118.
1228-1232.

Wackernagel, Jacob. 1903. Zur griechischen Nominalflexion.
Indogermanische Forschungen 14. 367-375.

Wyatt, William. 1970. The prehistory of the Greek dialects.
Transactions and proceedings of the American Philological Association
101. 557-632.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Jean-François Mondon is an Associate Professor of Global Studies at
Muskingum University in New Concord, OH. His research interests are
Indo-European Linguistics, Distributed Morphology, and Language
Pedagogy.



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