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In:Historical Linguistics 2023: Selected papers from the 26th International Conference on Historical Linguistics,Heidelberg, 4-8 September 2023
Edited by Jadranka Gvozdanović
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 371] 2026
► pp. 284–311

Voice morphology and valency orientation in Indo-European

Μorphosyntactic isoglosses and contact-induced changes

 | University of Athens
 | Ghent University
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
In the present study, we investigate the direction of change of voice morphology in Indo-European (IE), as directly related to the isoglosses of syncretic type of development of voice marking and of antisyncretic type of development. According to our hypothesis, the syncretic type of direction of change concerns IE languages that showed a common direction of change following a model of an IE language or IE languages; the antisyncretic type of IE languages is connected with the influence of non-IE languages, which is evident in other aspects of grammar that are related to voice, such as in the case system. We argue that these isoglosses present different characteristics because they are the result of different types of contact-induced changes.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Main aims and theoretical background
    • 1.2Ancient IE languages: Voice morphology and valency orientation
  • 2.Syncretic vs antisyncretic type of development:
    A preliminary hypothesis
    • 2.1Syncretic type of IE languages: The example of Greek
      • 2.1.1An overview
      • 2.1.2How wordlists reflect the diachrony of Greek
    • 2.2Antisyncretic type of development
  • 3.The hypothesis of contact-induced changes in the domain of voice and valency-changing categories: A preliminary evaluation
  • 4.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
  • Appendix
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