New Lights On Indo- European Comparative Grammar

About the Book The New Light on Indo-European Comparative Grammar- presents the result of the author's researches of two decades on different aspects of Indo-European phonology and morphology. As for instance only the short primary vowels have been shown to the original ones and consequently only three ablaut series as against six have been established, and a is shown as the weak grade vowel of short primary vowels, which eliminates the reconstruction of schwa secundum. The origin of the long secondary vowels are traced to positional variation as against the contraction of laryngeals with corresponding short ones, and the six series of positional variation of secondary vowels has been shown with detailed illustrations. The development of the IE labio-velars before front vowels in different IE languages has been linked up together. The seed of cerebralisation in Sanskrit has been traced up to the Satam stage. The work concludes is summing up the basis of the Indo-Hittite theory with a critical evaluation of the same.

The work also deals with all aspects of the Laryngeal Theory from the point of view of the theory itself and the theory has been quite elaborately examined in a spread out manner with reference to its application by the laryngealists to different aspects of Indo-European Grammar at appropriate places in due order.

Though the work is undoubtedly an outcome of higher research, yet the beginners will find it interesting and helpful, since several intricacies of hido-European Grammar have been dealt with.

About the Author Professor Dr. Satya Swarup Misra is well-known in the national and inter-national level as a thorough scholar in Indo-European Linguistics. Professor Misra is also a noted Sanskritist, having good grasp over the language of the Samhitas and the Brahmanas. He has more than two dozens of research works to his credit. Professor Misra is a senior professor in the Department of Linguistics in the Banaras Hindu University.

Preface New Lights on Indo-European Comparative Grammar presents the result of my researches on different aspects of Indo-European phonology and morphology.

The present work is also in a way complementary to two of my former major works, A Comparative Grammar of Sanskrit, Greek and Hittite, and The Laryngeal Controversy. In the first one all controversies were avoided and new suggestions were often made without going into detail of controversies, since 1 was confident that my basis for the conclusions was self-illuminating. But a review of the same by a well-known scholar made me aware that he also mis-understood many points, probably due to the brevity of exposition in the said work. I, therefore, consider it to be my moral duty to help my friends in expressing myself more elaborately, especially with reference to my original contributions to Indo-European Comparative Grammar. The other major work, The Laryngeal Controversy, which quite elaborately discusses and refutes the Laryngeal Theory was originally a thesis and won the Sir Ashutosh Gold Medal of the Calcutta University in 1968, as the best thesis in literature. This was published in a somewhat condensed form in Indian Linguistics, Vol 29 ( 1968 ). This work deals with all aspects of the Laryngeal Theory from the point of view of the theory itself, whereas in the present work, the theory has been quite elaborately examined in a spread out manner with reference to its application by the laryngealists to different aspects of Indo-European Comparative Grammar in phonology and morphology at appropriate places in due order, along with my original contributions which are not primarily concerned with the Laryngeal theory.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages