Linguistic strategies in filiation formulas: data from Lycian-Greek bilingual texts

Among nearly 200 Lycian inscriptions, a small corpus of Lycian-Greek bilinguals can be singled out that provides several clues on the Lycian cultural environment during the 1st millennium BC. The issue of the relationships between Lycians and Greeks has received the attention of many scholars, both from a historical and from a linguistic perspective. In this paper, we will study the Lycian- Greek filiation formulas in order to evaluate the extent of specific language contact phenomena. For this purpose, we will analyse the linguistic strategies adopted by the two languages to express the genealogy of an individual, by looking into the structures of each language and, at the same time, by comparing the different patterns within the corpus of bilingual texts. More specifically, our study will be focused on three major points : the morphological encoding of the father’s name in Greek within the bilingual texts, the use of the word for ‘son’ or ‘daughter’, and, finally, the presence or lack of Greek definite articles. Such an analysis aims to offer a contribution to the discussion about contact-induced language variation.