Abstract
As the second, enlarged edition of Stručná mluvnice praindoevropštiny [Brief grammar of Proto-Indo-European], this two-volume set aims to present the state-of-the-art of Indo-European linguistics and at the same time to serve as an introduction to the discipline. For this reason, the work has been divided into two volumes: first, the reference grammar of the reconstructed proto-language, second, a compendium of several distinct parts: a brief overview of the Indo-European linguistic family, focusing primarily on their early stages (material, writing systems, history and sociology), equally brief exposition of the history of the discipline of Indo-European comparative linguistics, its aims, methods and results.
To this, a terminological glossary has been appended to facilitate the readers orientation in the grammar or in the Indoeuropeanist scholarly literature as such. Also, the second volume contains an enlarged dictionary of selected reconstructed vocabulary, the parametres for selection being either direct continuation in Czech or English, or its relevance for the grammatical overview, or its representation within the short selection of texts - the chrestomathy, which concludes the second volume with excerpts from Hittite (the "Illuyanka Myth"), Greek (passages from Homer's Illiad and Odyssey), Vedic (Rigveda), Avestan (Gathas), Latin (two epigraphic texts), Old Irish (a poem), and Gothic Bible.
The chrestomathy serves several purposes. Apart from providing representative specimens of the literary traditions, it serves to exemplify several features of inherited syntax, as well as poetic formula, and the Proto-Indo-European background of each form.
The first volume aims to present a balanced overview of the competing theories on the prehistory of almost every category and item of the Proto-Indo-European grammar, including e.g. the h2e-conjugation theory or the views of the so-called Leiden school on ablaut classes and the occlusives of the proto-language. The newest findings and hypotheses concerning every aspect of PIE are incorporated with the more traditional views in order to hint at the directions the discipline may take in the future.
Much of the relevant literature published since the first edition has been consulted and on the whole, the second edition provides the reader with much more reference than the first one did, including selected bibliography for each of the branches of the Indo-European family. 356 praindoevropština ii. dodatky As much as it was possible, typological parallels and discussions were included for the benefit of either students or specialists from neighbouring fields, as after 200 years, Indo-European linguistics accumulated a wealth of data on langauge evolution, which cannot be rivaled by any other discipline and provides invaluable material for the study of grammaticalization, phonological change or analogy. Since the reconstruction relies almost exclusively on data from extinct languages, and it is impossible to confront any hypothesis with live speakers, this brings about the necessity to take into consideration several other factors, not strictly speaking linguistic, but bearing on the accuracy of our reasoning.
For this reason, the chapters dealing with phonology include short discussions of the writing systems, such as were used to record the languages. Also, the poetic techniques of each of the older branches is discussed inasmuch as it can contribute to philological and historical reconstruction of the texts.
Cultural aspects of the evolution of vocabulary - the embeddedness of language in human culture and cognition - are discussed in the relevant chapters. These aspect are also given due attention in the exposition of reconstruction methodology in the Volume II.
As the work aims at Czech speakers - students and specialists alike - much effort was dedicated to provide examples and parallels from the author's mothertongue. On the whole, Proto-Indo-European is presented not merely as the product of two centuries of reconstruction, a sum or intersection of the grammars and lexicons of the daughter languages, a comparative grammar, but as a sketch of a unique language, which inspires question of theoretical and typological kind.