Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans

by Thomas V. Gamkrelidze, Vjaceslav V. Ivanov

2010 · Walter de Gruyter

“Gamkrelidze and Ivanov’s wide-ranging and interdisciplinary work, superbly translated from Russian, is a must for every student of Indo-European prehistory. Its erudition is unsurpassed, and its unorthodox conclusions are a continuing challenge.” Prof. Dr. Martin Haspelmath, Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie The authors propose a revision of views on a number of central issues of Indo-European studies. Based on findings of typology, they suggest a new analysis of the phonological system of Proto-Indo-European (the ‘Glottalic Theory’); they offer novel assumptions about the relative chronology of changes in PIE vowels and laryngeals. Their conclusions are compared with data from Proto-Kartvelian. In the second part of the book, semantically organized presentation of material from the lexicon is combined with analyses of the use of forms and formulae in a broadly defined cultural context. Again similarities with properties of primarily Kartvelian and Semitic are described , and extended close contacts with these language families are postulated. This necessarily leads to a proposal to place the hypothetical Urheimat of the Indo-Europeans in the region south of the Caucasus. Volume and II of the original Russian edition have been combined in the English version as Part I; the Bibliography and Indexes are published as Part II.

Pioneer Photographers from the Mississippi to the Continental Divide

by Peter E. Palmquist, Thomas R. Kailbourn

2005 · Stanford University Press

This biographical dictionary of some 3,000 photographers (and workers in related trades), active in a vast area of North America before 1866, is based on extensive research and enhanced by some 240 illustrations, most of which are published here for the first time. The territory covered extends from central Canada through Mexico and includes the United States from the Mississippi River west to, but not including, the Rocky Mountain states. Together, this volume and its predecessor, Pioneer Photographers of the Far West: A Biographical Dictionary, 1840-1865, comprise an exhaustive survey of early photographers in North America and Central America, excluding the eastern United States and eastern Canada. This work is distinguished by the large number of entries, by the appealing narratives that cover both professional and private lives of the subjects, and by the painstaking documentation. It will be an essential reference work for historians, libraries, and museums, as well as for collectors of and dealers in early American photography. In addition to photographers, the book includes photographic printers, retouchers, and colorists, and manufacturers and sellers of photographic apparatus and stock. Because creators of moving panoramas and optical amusements such as dioramas and magic lantern performances often fashioned their works after photographs, the people behind those exhibitions are also discussed.

Balto-Slavic Accentual Mobility

by Thomas Olander

2009 · Walter de Gruyter

Why does the accent jump back and forth in Russian words like golová 'head', acc. gólovu, gen. golový, dat. golové etc.? How come we find similar alternations in other Slavic languages and in a Baltic language like Lithuanian? The quest for the origin of the so-called "mobile accent paradigms" of Baltic and Slavic leads the reader through other Indo-European language branches such as Indo-Iranian, Greek and Germanic, all of which are relevant to the reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European accentuation system. After the examination of the evidence for the reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European accentuation system, focus is moved to the Baltic and Slavic accentuation systems and their relationship to each other and to Proto-Indo-European. A comprehensive history of research and numerous bibliographical references to earlier pieces of scholarship throughout the book make it a useful tool for anybody who is interested in Balto-Slavic and Indo-European accentology. Written in a simple style and constantly aiming at presenting old and new opinions on the various problems, the volume may serve as an introduction to this complicated field.