Maria Molina | Tel Aviv University (original) (raw)
Drafts by Maria Molina
Draft, 2024
This paper presents a comprehensive etymological analysis of the emotional lexicon in Hittite, ex... more This paper presents a comprehensive etymological analysis of the emotional lexicon in Hittite, exploring the evolution and semantic development, providing semantic analysis for the key emotional terms such as genzu-('mercy'), nah(h)-('fear-respect'), and kartimmiya-('anger'), along with some others. Derivational nests are presented under the umbrella of the main root. More than 29 stems in 9 semantic fields, including analysis of submeanings, are discussed in the paper. A new etymology is suggested for werit(e)-('frightened'). Cases of non-emotional semantics for the words generally holding emotional meaning, are explained in the corresponding parts of the paper. The objective is to shed light on the emotional terminology in Proto-Anatolian and Proto-Indo-European linguistic landscapes, and to establish the boundaries of the semantic fields. The results will help to construct a more solid foundation for the reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European emotional lexicon, as well as a better understanding of its semantics.
Draft, 2024
In the dictionaries (HED, HW2), the Hittite word 'aššu-' primarily conveys two meanings: "good", ... more In the dictionaries (HED, HW2), the Hittite word 'aššu-' primarily conveys two meanings: "good", "valuable" (agreeable, valuable, favourable) and "loved by someone" (dear, favoured). Distinguishing between these meanings in texts can be challenging, even with contextual clues. Nonetheless, some distinctions should be established to differentiate between emotionally charged and more neutrally descriptive contexts.
Hittite emotions by Maria Molina
Studying Ancient Emotions Across Languages and Media, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, 24-26 July 2023, 2023
This talk presents a comprehensive etymological analysis of the emotional lexicon in Hittite, exp... more This talk presents a comprehensive etymological analysis of the emotional lexicon in Hittite, exploring the evolution and semantic development, providing semantic analysis for the key emotional terms such as genzu- ('mercy'), nah(h)- ('fear-respect'), and kartimmiya- (’anger’), along with the others.
The objective is to shed light on the roots of emotional terminology in Proto-Anatolian and Proto-Indo-European linguistic landscapes, and to establish the boundaries of the semantic fields.
Syntax of the Hittite Clause by Maria Molina
The 12th International Congress of Hittitology, Istanbul, 05/09/2023, 2023
In this talk I outline the results of a several years of study over Hittite second position cliti... more In this talk I outline the results of a several years of study over Hittite second position clitic particles (-ma, -ya, -pat), their syntax, including their position in the clause, and information structure of sentences with those particles.
Journal of Language Relationship, 2018
In this paper, I cover the problem of topic and focus revealing in the sentences of Hittite and A... more In this paper, I cover the problem of topic and focus revealing in the sentences of Hittite and Ancient Greek, two of the earliest Indo-European languages attested in writing. Information structure revealing gives us clues not only to the placement of accent (which is highly relevant for Hittite phonology), but also to the reconstruction of Indo-European syntax. Current methods of information structure analysis in dead languages remain insufficiently developed, with seemingly arbitrary procedures of focus revealing that lack proper argumentation. The paper suggests using a complex approach, subsequently applying several methods that have been tested on living languages, but so far have not yielded positive results on data from extinct languages on their own: namely, the method of Focus Skeleton (identification of a row of focus alternatives together with topic analysis), and the method of Question under Discussion, both of them applied in combination with contextual and philological analysis. /
Работа посвящена проблеме определения фокусных и топикальных элементов в хеттском и древнегреческом языках, двух из древнейших зафиксированных в письменности языков индоевропейской семьи. Выявление информационной структуры предложения не только дает ключи к определению места ударения, что актуально для хеттского языка, но и необходимо для реконструкции синтаксиса на праязыковом уровне. На данный момент методология работы с информационной структурой в мертвых языках недостаточно разработана, выделение фокусов не обосновывается и может выглядеть произвольным. Мы предлагаем использовать комплексный подход, последовательно применяя несколько методов, разработанных на материале живых языков, но по отдельности не дающих в корпусных языках уверенного ответа на вопрос, почему это фокус: метод фокусного скелета (определения ряда фокусных альтернатив наряду с анализом топикальной структуры предложения) и метод вопроса к предложению, применяемые на фоне контекстного и филологического анализа.
Indo-European Linguistics and Classical Philology -- XX (2) / Индоевропейское языкознание и классическая филология -- XX (2), 2016
Emphatic enclitic particle =pat in Hittite is the only enclitic particle that, according to tradi... more Emphatic enclitic particle =pat in Hittite is the only enclitic particle that, according to traditional views, always marks focus. Still, there has been yet no proper research of its functions with the help of corpus approach. The paper offers results of a corpus analysis of =pat’s functions on the material of the Hittite letters and instructions. My research showed that this particle always marks identificational foci, such as contrastive replacing, restricting and selecting foci, and non-contrastive scalar and verum foci. It does not mark information focus on my material. The analysis also demonstrated that, when =pat cliticizes to the verb (which in most other cases carries on the information focus), focus semantics should be considered as confirmation focus.
We discuss the extraordinary syntax of the enclitic -(m)a: as different from other enclitics it d... more We discuss the extraordinary syntax of the enclitic -(m)a: as different from other enclitics it does not cliticize to a set of words like nu, mān, etc. How- ever, as different from -pat with its free distribution within the clause -(m)a attests a very clear tendency to be positioned after the first stressed word. To make things even more complicated, in the focusing function it attests a seemingly free posi- tion in the clause. The paradox of -(m)a is that most of the details of its aberrant syntactic behavior, save some clause internal usage which we are demonstrating for the first time, are perfectly well known, but several pieces of evidence have never been brought together. The main of them is the fact that the set of words which does not host -(m)a as well as -ya is precisely the set of words which is not taken into consideration when the second position of such constituents as relative pronouns in determinate clauses, subordinators maḫḫan and kuit is determined. The paper also provides a unitary explanation of both topicalising -(m)a in the left periphery and focusing -(m)a in the preverbal position: the common feature might be the prosodic boundary to the left of both hosts triggered by information structure to the left of the host of both topicalizing -(m)a/additively focusing -ya in the left periphery and focusing -(m)a/ya preverbally.
We discuss the diachronic development of syntax of enclitic conjunctions -(m)a "but"/-(y)a "and" ... more We discuss the diachronic development of syntax of enclitic conjunctions -(m)a "but"/-(y)a "and" in Hittite. We argue that the change in the placement which occurred during New Hittite period was due to the change in the Hittite clause architecture within the left periphery.
A talk at the 50th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea (SLE 2017) in Zurich, 10–1... more A talk at the 50th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea (SLE 2017) in Zurich, 10–13 September 2017
The emphatic particle =pat ‘only/precisely/the (very) same’ in Hittite seems to be a rare case of... more The emphatic particle =pat ‘only/precisely/the (very) same’ in Hittite seems to be a rare case of the enclitic with the free distribution in the clause. Generally, Hittite enclitics are Wackernagel second position enclitics. Is =pat really free or is it bound by some syntax reasons or information structure? What is its function in the information structure of the Hittite clause?
I discuss non-canonical position for the negation markers and the nature of negative pronouns in ... more I discuss non-canonical position for the negation markers and the nature of negative pronouns in Hittite. The study is based on the Middle Hittite corpus of letters and instructions.
Hittite Corpus by Maria Molina
Computational Perspectives on Ancient Near Eastern Literature, Art and Material Culture, 19-21 February, 2023, 2023
Why the Hittite Corpus? Anatolian languages being the first to leave Indo-European community, Hit... more Why the Hittite Corpus? Anatolian languages being the first to leave Indo-European community, Hittite (and Luwian) reconstruction remains one of the most important steps to the Proto-Indo-European reconstruction. We need a corpus to undestand a dead language, - you can't just go and ask a Hittite native speaker.
Computational Linguistics and Intellectual Technologies: Proceedings of the International Conference “Dialogue 2016” , Jun 1, 2016
The paper presents a new corpus of an ancient language—Hittite, a dead cuneiform language of Anat... more The paper presents a new corpus of an ancient language—Hittite, a dead cuneiform language of Anatolian family attested on clay tablets of 18–12 cc. BC. Hittite syntax proves to be more and more interesting for the researchers, so the need of an online annotated corpus for this language is more and more compelling. There are several major problems of building an annotated corpus for a dead cuneiform language. All texts have lacunae in almost every sentence, therefore, it is rather difficult to apply standard methods of parsing and syntactic annotation. The main problem concerns marking up syntax in broken parts. Most treebanks are based on morpho- syntactic annotation performed at the level of a word form. But having half of a sentence lost, we can hardly build a tree out of broken fragments. Instead, we suggest annotation of a whole clause. The paper discusses the principles of syntactic annotation of broken parts and the basic structure of a new syntactically annotated Hittite corpus (available at http://hittitecorpus.ru), the on-going project of the Department of Anatolian and Celtic Studies at the Institute of linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences.
Proceedings of the Workshop on Computational Linguistics and Language Science, CEUR Workshop Proceedings, 2016
The aim of the paper is to present a project of a syntactically annotated corpus of Hittite, a de... more The aim of the paper is to present a project of a syntactically annotated corpus of Hittite, a dead cuneiform language (Anatolian family), the oldest Indo-European language attested in writing, that was spoken in 18-12 cc. BC on the territory of present-day Turkey. No publicly available corpus of Hittite with syntactic annotation exists so far, meanwhile Hittite syntax proves to be more and more interesting for the researchers, so the need of an online annotated corpus for this language is more and more compelling. There are certain problems arising in development of such a corpus. Some of them are specific to the language itself, like 2P clitic chains, their position in the clause in terms of generative linguistics, and constituency structure of the Hittite clause. Others are connected to sociolinguistic peculiarities of Hittite system of writing: Akkadian and Sumerian logograms had been widely used by the Hittite scribes, and should be properly marked up in a Hittite corpus. Another problem is lacunae — clay tablets had been heavily broken in the last 3000–3500 years. What should be principles of phrase structure annotation when half the sentence is gone? The paper discusses these and others problems and principles on the material of the presented project.
In this paper, we report the results of a pilot project aimed at the inclusion of Hittite texts i... more In this paper, we report the results of a pilot project aimed at the inclusion of Hittite texts in the PROIEL family of treebanks. The first challenge is that the PROIEL annotation scheme has been designed for Indo-European languages mostly written in alphabetic scripts, so that a way to annotate the complex cuneiform script on which Hittite tablets are recorded must be worked out. Moreover, Hittite also provides some interesting morphosyntactic features that require the adaptation of annotation strategies already in use for other languages in PROIEL. Overall, our preliminary findings show that Hittite can be easily integrated into the PROIEL enterprise, but also that future work is required to effectively achieve this goal.
Published in: Proceedings of the Second Workshop on Corpus-Based Research in the Humanities (CRH-2), Adrew U. Frank, Christine Ivanovic, Francesco Mambrini, Marco Passarotti & Caroline Sporleder (eds.), 95-104.
Ancient Verse by Maria Molina
Though there are many hypotheses as to the system of versification for proto-Indo-European or eve... more Though there are many hypotheses as to the system of versification for proto-Indo-European or even all-world verse at its initial stage of development, the most ancient examples of verse have not yet been thoroughly studied. In this article we examine Sumerian, Akkadian, and Hittite texts. (some of which were written in 23–13 centuries B.C., before the much better known Ancient Greek). We discuss methods suitable for analyzing such verse, which is not strictly organized, as well as the results of quantitative analysis of verse in these three languages. We studied the number of syllables, number of stresses, number and distribution of long vowels (and where relevant the distribution of heavy syllables within a line). The presence or absence of rhyme, type of rhyme, and the presence or absence of well-formed stanzaic schemes were also taken into account. Comparing quantitative data for the three languages enables us to suggest that both syllabic (Sumerian) and accentual (Akkadian, Hit...
Aula Orientalis, 2019
The paper presents one of possible methods to determine poetic line boundaries in Hittite poetic ... more The paper presents one of possible methods to determine poetic line boundaries in Hittite poetic texts. The method has been developed on the material of "Song of Ullikummi" (Kumarbi cycle). Poetic lines in Hittite texts might have or have not coincided with cuneiform line boundaries-we have no graphic data on this score. This poses a big question for the Hittite verse analysis. It has been suggested before that a poetic line in the Hittite verse coincided with a clause and was based on stress count, 4 stresses per line (2x2), following the Akkadian verse and so called Mesopotamian tradition. Detailed analysis of "Song of Ullikummi" demonstrated, though, that the Hittite verse cannot be described in this manner in at least 60% of the text. This could only mean that segmentation for poetic lines should be different. Typological and graphical evidence was involved in determining the most probable segmentation of the text for poetic lines. Repetitions and assonances applied on the next stage yielded a piece of quite a satisfactory verse where poetic lines differed from clauses. The suggested method is yet to be proven against a bulk quantity of texts, but it has already survived the first application to "Song of Ullikummi", with stable results throughout the text. The first preliminary results hint at accentual nature of Hittite verse and at combinations of 3 and 2 stresses per line. 2 ]
Kritika i semiotika, 2017
The paper discusses previous research of the Hittite poetic meter, emerged since 1951 when H. Güt... more The paper discusses previous research of the Hittite poetic meter, emerged since 1951 when H. Güterbock wrote that so called Song of Ullikumi (Kumarbi cycle) does have a regular meter. He suggested also that Hittite poetry was organized on the count of accent (tonic nature of poetry), and that it demonstrated the same style as Akkadian and Sumerian poetry: four stresses and two cola per line. He came out with the idea that a poetic line coincide with a clause in Hittite texts; that all of the texts were written as a prosaic ones, in a row, without any separation of poetic lines. Unfortunately, the following researchers took his words for granted and started searching for the ways to comply with the “Mesopotamian tradition”. Analyses were carried out using the material of the Song of Ullikumi, some other texts from the Kumarbi cycle and other texts marked with a logogram SÌR (hitt. išḫamaiš, meaning ‘song’), in the direction of determining the words that were unstressed, in order to make it 4 stresses per line (clause). No comprehensive statistical analysis, though, had been provided for the Hittite poetry: all the reports were dealing with a limited amount of clauses from the Song of Ullikumi or the Song of Nesa. Most researchers, among them prominent Hittitologists, such as S. P. Durnford and H. C. Mel- chert, would discuss possible lack of stress in clauses on the basis of their arbitrary opinion of what kinds of words could be united into one stress unit with another word (e.g. dependent noun genitive with its head noun). Obviously, one could find almost anything needed with this approach. Our own preliminary analysis of stresses in Ullikumi has demonstrated that only 30 % of its text might yield 4 stresses per line, which is indeed too little to call it a verse. The review discusses the lack and the necessity of a proper statistical analysis on the corpus that would include all the allegedly poetic texts of Hittite tradition. The authors have argued that available evidence, contra previous research, cannot suggest any stress loss/reduction, and that in order to separate the Hittite poetry from the Hittite prose, and to determine the principles of the Hittite poetic meter one should provide different evidence using corpus and statistical methods, and analyzing the very basics of versification in Hittite, e.g., the principles of line separation.
This is a poster for the 4th International Summer School for Indo-European Linguistics, 4–9 Septe... more This is a poster for the 4th International Summer School for Indo-European Linguistics, 4–9 September 2017, Pavia, Italy. The work has been conducted in the framework of the ongoing project “The Typology of Verse Genesis: precise and computer methods” (Institute of linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow). The first aim of the project is to find a verse pattern in the Hittite epic texts comparing Myth of Telibinu (prose) vs Song of Ullikummi (poetry). Analysis aims also at the genres that are always prosaic, to reveal patterns normal for the ordinary speech: letters, instructions.
Draft, 2024
This paper presents a comprehensive etymological analysis of the emotional lexicon in Hittite, ex... more This paper presents a comprehensive etymological analysis of the emotional lexicon in Hittite, exploring the evolution and semantic development, providing semantic analysis for the key emotional terms such as genzu-('mercy'), nah(h)-('fear-respect'), and kartimmiya-('anger'), along with some others. Derivational nests are presented under the umbrella of the main root. More than 29 stems in 9 semantic fields, including analysis of submeanings, are discussed in the paper. A new etymology is suggested for werit(e)-('frightened'). Cases of non-emotional semantics for the words generally holding emotional meaning, are explained in the corresponding parts of the paper. The objective is to shed light on the emotional terminology in Proto-Anatolian and Proto-Indo-European linguistic landscapes, and to establish the boundaries of the semantic fields. The results will help to construct a more solid foundation for the reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European emotional lexicon, as well as a better understanding of its semantics.
Draft, 2024
In the dictionaries (HED, HW2), the Hittite word 'aššu-' primarily conveys two meanings: "good", ... more In the dictionaries (HED, HW2), the Hittite word 'aššu-' primarily conveys two meanings: "good", "valuable" (agreeable, valuable, favourable) and "loved by someone" (dear, favoured). Distinguishing between these meanings in texts can be challenging, even with contextual clues. Nonetheless, some distinctions should be established to differentiate between emotionally charged and more neutrally descriptive contexts.
Studying Ancient Emotions Across Languages and Media, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, 24-26 July 2023, 2023
This talk presents a comprehensive etymological analysis of the emotional lexicon in Hittite, exp... more This talk presents a comprehensive etymological analysis of the emotional lexicon in Hittite, exploring the evolution and semantic development, providing semantic analysis for the key emotional terms such as genzu- ('mercy'), nah(h)- ('fear-respect'), and kartimmiya- (’anger’), along with the others.
The objective is to shed light on the roots of emotional terminology in Proto-Anatolian and Proto-Indo-European linguistic landscapes, and to establish the boundaries of the semantic fields.
The 12th International Congress of Hittitology, Istanbul, 05/09/2023, 2023
In this talk I outline the results of a several years of study over Hittite second position cliti... more In this talk I outline the results of a several years of study over Hittite second position clitic particles (-ma, -ya, -pat), their syntax, including their position in the clause, and information structure of sentences with those particles.
Journal of Language Relationship, 2018
In this paper, I cover the problem of topic and focus revealing in the sentences of Hittite and A... more In this paper, I cover the problem of topic and focus revealing in the sentences of Hittite and Ancient Greek, two of the earliest Indo-European languages attested in writing. Information structure revealing gives us clues not only to the placement of accent (which is highly relevant for Hittite phonology), but also to the reconstruction of Indo-European syntax. Current methods of information structure analysis in dead languages remain insufficiently developed, with seemingly arbitrary procedures of focus revealing that lack proper argumentation. The paper suggests using a complex approach, subsequently applying several methods that have been tested on living languages, but so far have not yielded positive results on data from extinct languages on their own: namely, the method of Focus Skeleton (identification of a row of focus alternatives together with topic analysis), and the method of Question under Discussion, both of them applied in combination with contextual and philological analysis. /
Работа посвящена проблеме определения фокусных и топикальных элементов в хеттском и древнегреческом языках, двух из древнейших зафиксированных в письменности языков индоевропейской семьи. Выявление информационной структуры предложения не только дает ключи к определению места ударения, что актуально для хеттского языка, но и необходимо для реконструкции синтаксиса на праязыковом уровне. На данный момент методология работы с информационной структурой в мертвых языках недостаточно разработана, выделение фокусов не обосновывается и может выглядеть произвольным. Мы предлагаем использовать комплексный подход, последовательно применяя несколько методов, разработанных на материале живых языков, но по отдельности не дающих в корпусных языках уверенного ответа на вопрос, почему это фокус: метод фокусного скелета (определения ряда фокусных альтернатив наряду с анализом топикальной структуры предложения) и метод вопроса к предложению, применяемые на фоне контекстного и филологического анализа.
Indo-European Linguistics and Classical Philology -- XX (2) / Индоевропейское языкознание и классическая филология -- XX (2), 2016
Emphatic enclitic particle =pat in Hittite is the only enclitic particle that, according to tradi... more Emphatic enclitic particle =pat in Hittite is the only enclitic particle that, according to traditional views, always marks focus. Still, there has been yet no proper research of its functions with the help of corpus approach. The paper offers results of a corpus analysis of =pat’s functions on the material of the Hittite letters and instructions. My research showed that this particle always marks identificational foci, such as contrastive replacing, restricting and selecting foci, and non-contrastive scalar and verum foci. It does not mark information focus on my material. The analysis also demonstrated that, when =pat cliticizes to the verb (which in most other cases carries on the information focus), focus semantics should be considered as confirmation focus.
We discuss the extraordinary syntax of the enclitic -(m)a: as different from other enclitics it d... more We discuss the extraordinary syntax of the enclitic -(m)a: as different from other enclitics it does not cliticize to a set of words like nu, mān, etc. How- ever, as different from -pat with its free distribution within the clause -(m)a attests a very clear tendency to be positioned after the first stressed word. To make things even more complicated, in the focusing function it attests a seemingly free posi- tion in the clause. The paradox of -(m)a is that most of the details of its aberrant syntactic behavior, save some clause internal usage which we are demonstrating for the first time, are perfectly well known, but several pieces of evidence have never been brought together. The main of them is the fact that the set of words which does not host -(m)a as well as -ya is precisely the set of words which is not taken into consideration when the second position of such constituents as relative pronouns in determinate clauses, subordinators maḫḫan and kuit is determined. The paper also provides a unitary explanation of both topicalising -(m)a in the left periphery and focusing -(m)a in the preverbal position: the common feature might be the prosodic boundary to the left of both hosts triggered by information structure to the left of the host of both topicalizing -(m)a/additively focusing -ya in the left periphery and focusing -(m)a/ya preverbally.
We discuss the diachronic development of syntax of enclitic conjunctions -(m)a "but"/-(y)a "and" ... more We discuss the diachronic development of syntax of enclitic conjunctions -(m)a "but"/-(y)a "and" in Hittite. We argue that the change in the placement which occurred during New Hittite period was due to the change in the Hittite clause architecture within the left periphery.
A talk at the 50th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea (SLE 2017) in Zurich, 10–1... more A talk at the 50th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea (SLE 2017) in Zurich, 10–13 September 2017
The emphatic particle =pat ‘only/precisely/the (very) same’ in Hittite seems to be a rare case of... more The emphatic particle =pat ‘only/precisely/the (very) same’ in Hittite seems to be a rare case of the enclitic with the free distribution in the clause. Generally, Hittite enclitics are Wackernagel second position enclitics. Is =pat really free or is it bound by some syntax reasons or information structure? What is its function in the information structure of the Hittite clause?
I discuss non-canonical position for the negation markers and the nature of negative pronouns in ... more I discuss non-canonical position for the negation markers and the nature of negative pronouns in Hittite. The study is based on the Middle Hittite corpus of letters and instructions.
Computational Perspectives on Ancient Near Eastern Literature, Art and Material Culture, 19-21 February, 2023, 2023
Why the Hittite Corpus? Anatolian languages being the first to leave Indo-European community, Hit... more Why the Hittite Corpus? Anatolian languages being the first to leave Indo-European community, Hittite (and Luwian) reconstruction remains one of the most important steps to the Proto-Indo-European reconstruction. We need a corpus to undestand a dead language, - you can't just go and ask a Hittite native speaker.
Computational Linguistics and Intellectual Technologies: Proceedings of the International Conference “Dialogue 2016” , Jun 1, 2016
The paper presents a new corpus of an ancient language—Hittite, a dead cuneiform language of Anat... more The paper presents a new corpus of an ancient language—Hittite, a dead cuneiform language of Anatolian family attested on clay tablets of 18–12 cc. BC. Hittite syntax proves to be more and more interesting for the researchers, so the need of an online annotated corpus for this language is more and more compelling. There are several major problems of building an annotated corpus for a dead cuneiform language. All texts have lacunae in almost every sentence, therefore, it is rather difficult to apply standard methods of parsing and syntactic annotation. The main problem concerns marking up syntax in broken parts. Most treebanks are based on morpho- syntactic annotation performed at the level of a word form. But having half of a sentence lost, we can hardly build a tree out of broken fragments. Instead, we suggest annotation of a whole clause. The paper discusses the principles of syntactic annotation of broken parts and the basic structure of a new syntactically annotated Hittite corpus (available at http://hittitecorpus.ru), the on-going project of the Department of Anatolian and Celtic Studies at the Institute of linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences.
Proceedings of the Workshop on Computational Linguistics and Language Science, CEUR Workshop Proceedings, 2016
The aim of the paper is to present a project of a syntactically annotated corpus of Hittite, a de... more The aim of the paper is to present a project of a syntactically annotated corpus of Hittite, a dead cuneiform language (Anatolian family), the oldest Indo-European language attested in writing, that was spoken in 18-12 cc. BC on the territory of present-day Turkey. No publicly available corpus of Hittite with syntactic annotation exists so far, meanwhile Hittite syntax proves to be more and more interesting for the researchers, so the need of an online annotated corpus for this language is more and more compelling. There are certain problems arising in development of such a corpus. Some of them are specific to the language itself, like 2P clitic chains, their position in the clause in terms of generative linguistics, and constituency structure of the Hittite clause. Others are connected to sociolinguistic peculiarities of Hittite system of writing: Akkadian and Sumerian logograms had been widely used by the Hittite scribes, and should be properly marked up in a Hittite corpus. Another problem is lacunae — clay tablets had been heavily broken in the last 3000–3500 years. What should be principles of phrase structure annotation when half the sentence is gone? The paper discusses these and others problems and principles on the material of the presented project.
In this paper, we report the results of a pilot project aimed at the inclusion of Hittite texts i... more In this paper, we report the results of a pilot project aimed at the inclusion of Hittite texts in the PROIEL family of treebanks. The first challenge is that the PROIEL annotation scheme has been designed for Indo-European languages mostly written in alphabetic scripts, so that a way to annotate the complex cuneiform script on which Hittite tablets are recorded must be worked out. Moreover, Hittite also provides some interesting morphosyntactic features that require the adaptation of annotation strategies already in use for other languages in PROIEL. Overall, our preliminary findings show that Hittite can be easily integrated into the PROIEL enterprise, but also that future work is required to effectively achieve this goal.
Published in: Proceedings of the Second Workshop on Corpus-Based Research in the Humanities (CRH-2), Adrew U. Frank, Christine Ivanovic, Francesco Mambrini, Marco Passarotti & Caroline Sporleder (eds.), 95-104.
Though there are many hypotheses as to the system of versification for proto-Indo-European or eve... more Though there are many hypotheses as to the system of versification for proto-Indo-European or even all-world verse at its initial stage of development, the most ancient examples of verse have not yet been thoroughly studied. In this article we examine Sumerian, Akkadian, and Hittite texts. (some of which were written in 23–13 centuries B.C., before the much better known Ancient Greek). We discuss methods suitable for analyzing such verse, which is not strictly organized, as well as the results of quantitative analysis of verse in these three languages. We studied the number of syllables, number of stresses, number and distribution of long vowels (and where relevant the distribution of heavy syllables within a line). The presence or absence of rhyme, type of rhyme, and the presence or absence of well-formed stanzaic schemes were also taken into account. Comparing quantitative data for the three languages enables us to suggest that both syllabic (Sumerian) and accentual (Akkadian, Hit...
Aula Orientalis, 2019
The paper presents one of possible methods to determine poetic line boundaries in Hittite poetic ... more The paper presents one of possible methods to determine poetic line boundaries in Hittite poetic texts. The method has been developed on the material of "Song of Ullikummi" (Kumarbi cycle). Poetic lines in Hittite texts might have or have not coincided with cuneiform line boundaries-we have no graphic data on this score. This poses a big question for the Hittite verse analysis. It has been suggested before that a poetic line in the Hittite verse coincided with a clause and was based on stress count, 4 stresses per line (2x2), following the Akkadian verse and so called Mesopotamian tradition. Detailed analysis of "Song of Ullikummi" demonstrated, though, that the Hittite verse cannot be described in this manner in at least 60% of the text. This could only mean that segmentation for poetic lines should be different. Typological and graphical evidence was involved in determining the most probable segmentation of the text for poetic lines. Repetitions and assonances applied on the next stage yielded a piece of quite a satisfactory verse where poetic lines differed from clauses. The suggested method is yet to be proven against a bulk quantity of texts, but it has already survived the first application to "Song of Ullikummi", with stable results throughout the text. The first preliminary results hint at accentual nature of Hittite verse and at combinations of 3 and 2 stresses per line. 2 ]
Kritika i semiotika, 2017
The paper discusses previous research of the Hittite poetic meter, emerged since 1951 when H. Güt... more The paper discusses previous research of the Hittite poetic meter, emerged since 1951 when H. Güterbock wrote that so called Song of Ullikumi (Kumarbi cycle) does have a regular meter. He suggested also that Hittite poetry was organized on the count of accent (tonic nature of poetry), and that it demonstrated the same style as Akkadian and Sumerian poetry: four stresses and two cola per line. He came out with the idea that a poetic line coincide with a clause in Hittite texts; that all of the texts were written as a prosaic ones, in a row, without any separation of poetic lines. Unfortunately, the following researchers took his words for granted and started searching for the ways to comply with the “Mesopotamian tradition”. Analyses were carried out using the material of the Song of Ullikumi, some other texts from the Kumarbi cycle and other texts marked with a logogram SÌR (hitt. išḫamaiš, meaning ‘song’), in the direction of determining the words that were unstressed, in order to make it 4 stresses per line (clause). No comprehensive statistical analysis, though, had been provided for the Hittite poetry: all the reports were dealing with a limited amount of clauses from the Song of Ullikumi or the Song of Nesa. Most researchers, among them prominent Hittitologists, such as S. P. Durnford and H. C. Mel- chert, would discuss possible lack of stress in clauses on the basis of their arbitrary opinion of what kinds of words could be united into one stress unit with another word (e.g. dependent noun genitive with its head noun). Obviously, one could find almost anything needed with this approach. Our own preliminary analysis of stresses in Ullikumi has demonstrated that only 30 % of its text might yield 4 stresses per line, which is indeed too little to call it a verse. The review discusses the lack and the necessity of a proper statistical analysis on the corpus that would include all the allegedly poetic texts of Hittite tradition. The authors have argued that available evidence, contra previous research, cannot suggest any stress loss/reduction, and that in order to separate the Hittite poetry from the Hittite prose, and to determine the principles of the Hittite poetic meter one should provide different evidence using corpus and statistical methods, and analyzing the very basics of versification in Hittite, e.g., the principles of line separation.
This is a poster for the 4th International Summer School for Indo-European Linguistics, 4–9 Septe... more This is a poster for the 4th International Summer School for Indo-European Linguistics, 4–9 September 2017, Pavia, Italy. The work has been conducted in the framework of the ongoing project “The Typology of Verse Genesis: precise and computer methods” (Institute of linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow). The first aim of the project is to find a verse pattern in the Hittite epic texts comparing Myth of Telibinu (prose) vs Song of Ullikummi (poetry). Analysis aims also at the genres that are always prosaic, to reveal patterns normal for the ordinary speech: letters, instructions.
Словообразовательная структура отглагольных имен существительных со значением деятеля в памятниках древнерусской письменности XI-XIV вв., May 21, 2009
Diploma abstract / In Russian. In this work we analyse system links between verbs and adverbial ... more Diploma abstract / In Russian.
In this work we analyse system links between verbs and adverbial nomina agentis and look into semantics of productive suffixes which form such names. A hypothesis is offered concerning the transposition of a reflex of aspect semantics from verb to name.
/Работа представляет собой описание и анализ системных связей внутри словообразовательной категории отглагольных имен деятеля в языке XI–XIV вв. и ставит определенные вопросы в части, касающейся семантики словообразовательного значения nomina agentis, которые могут лечь в основу последующих исследований.
Собран материал, организованный в виде словообразовательных гнезд с включением имен деятеля, выписаны словообразовательные цепочки типа V --> Nagentis. Выполнен формальный сопоставительный анализ мотивации имен деятеля той или иной видовой формой глагола, сделан вывод о том, что определенная семантика, связанная с аспектуальными значениями, может передаваться деривату в ходе словообразовательного процесса.
Корпусное исследование информационной структуры хеттского языка (на материале среднехеттских писем), Jun 9, 2014
This paper is a corpus research of information structure of Middle Hittite. The Hittite letter co... more This paper is a corpus research of information structure of Middle Hittite. The Hittite letter corpus of (Hoffner 2009) offers a good representative raw data for the analysis. As a dead language, Hittite provides scarce data about its information structure. Letters are one good source to understand the way how people might have communicated. The corpus approach helps us to catalogize all non-canonical word order cases, and then we can calculate their frequency and discuss their function.
Language of the publication: Russian.
Indo-European Linguistics and Classical Philology - XVIII, Jun 23, 2014
This paper is the part of the project applying corpus method to the Middle Hittite letters. We ca... more This paper is the part of the project applying corpus method to the Middle Hittite letters. We carried out a quantitative analysis dedicated to the problems of non-canonical word order in Hittite. It focuses on the question of clause borders, specifically the position allowed for certain clitics, such as proclitic phrase connecting conjuction nu and enclitic adversative conjunction -ma. Their position is leftmost within the clause, however, there are also some rare cases when -ma is clitisized to the first verb in the clause. The paper discusses possible causes for this placement. We also consider other constituents which also behave in a non-canonical way in relation to the left edge of the clause, such as mān, kāša (kāšma), našma, namma. The results led us to belief that these constituents are non fully stressed. The paper further discusses a hypothesis of the optional non-stressability of these particles.
![Research paper thumbnail of [Review] Carlotta Viti (ed.). Perspectives on historical syntax. Studies in Language Companion Series 169, 2015.](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/55146124/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](Journal of language relationship, 2016
It is a review of a volume dedicated to various issues of historical syntax and syntactic reconst... more It is a review of a volume dedicated to various issues of historical syntax and syntactic reconstruction. The book is a collection of contributions resulting from the workshop “Syntactic change and syntactic reconstruction: new perspectives” held at the University of Zurich in September 2012.
![Research paper thumbnail of [Review] L. Kulikov, N. Lavidas (eds.). Proto-Indo-European Syntax and Its Development. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2015](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/58491205/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](Voprosy jazykoznanija, 2016
The book under review is dedicated to the questions of Proto-Indo-European syntax reconstruction.... more The book under review is dedicated to the questions of Proto-Indo-European syntax reconstruction. The book is based on the materials of the workshop “Proto-Indo-European syntax and its development“, 19–20 April 2011 as a part of 20th International symposium on theoretical and applied linguistics. The workshop put together researchers in Proto-Indo-European studies, typology and syntax, its main problem was to find consensus in what concerns ergative/accusative word order, subject and object marking.
![Research paper thumbnail of [Reports] Pavia International Summer School for Indo-European Linguistics. // Хроника: 4-я Летняя школа по индоевропеистике в Павии, 2017.](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/55708218/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](Journal of Language Relationship, 2017
The report talks about the last of Pavia Summer Schools for Indo-European Linguistics. Ἔργα καὶ Ἡ... more The report talks about the last of Pavia Summer Schools for Indo-European Linguistics. Ἔργα καὶ Ἡμέραι of this fantastic event are described as a chronicle of academic life.
![Research paper thumbnail of [Reports] The 9th Annual Sergei Starostin Memorial Conference on Comparative-Historical Linguistics](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/35290197/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](Journal of Language Relationship, Sep 2014
The paper reports on the 9th traditional conference in Memory of S. A. Starostin, Moscow, RSUH, M... more The paper reports on the 9th traditional conference in Memory of S. A. Starostin, Moscow, RSUH, March 27–28, 2014
Chrdk.ru, 2018, 6 Nov, 2018
A popular story about Bronze Collapse: where have all those people gone?
Science Focus Russia, 2014, 02, Feb 20, 2014
Science Focus Russia, 2013, 05, May 20, 2013
Vokrug Sveta, 2012, 10, Oct 2012
Column for Vokrug Sveta magazine on new methods of linguistics inherited from biology.
Science Focus Russia, 2011, 12, Dec 20, 2011
Zoroastrianism and practice of burying dead on dakhmas. Towers of silence, or dakhmas, are squat ... more Zoroastrianism and practice of burying dead on dakhmas. Towers of silence, or dakhmas, are squat circular walled stone structures, inside which bodies of the deceased are exposed to birds and dogs who eat the flesh.
