3 Review(s)

The monumental, multi-volume comparative grammar of the Indo-European languages by Karl Brugmann (1849-1919) provided a synthesis of the first 70 years of research in a rapidly-developing academic subject, and identified areas for future investigation. Volume 2, split into three parts, covers morphology, roots and inflection, beginning with nouns and continuing with pronouns and verbs. It begins with a substantial introduction that includes bibliographic information, and then focuses in turn on each Proto-Indo-European feature and its reflexes in the earliest attested languages of each language family (Sanskrit, Avestan, Armenian, Greek, Italic, Germanic, Old Irish, Balto-Slavic). Comparisons are also made within families, for example between Gothic and Old English. Owing to its length, the original publisher bound this volume in two parts, paginated as a single sequence; in this reissue, it is divided into three parts, maintaining the same pagination.