In participle we predicate. Contributions of the Comparative and Historical Linguistics to Grammar and Semantics of Participle

The present volume contains research results of the international project Compe¬ting forms of ex¬pression in Indo-European Syntax: The Syn¬tax of Participle according to its Morphology, the Syntax of Sen¬tence ac¬cor¬ding to its Constituents, sponsored by the Fritz von Thyssen Foun¬da¬ti¬on in Ger-many, with Principal Investigators Paola COTTICELLI KURRAS (Univ¬er¬sity of Verona) and Velizar SADOVSKI (Austrian Academy of Sciences). The historical and comparative studies of this lin¬guistic subject star¬¬ted as a co-operation in the framework of the long-term research pro¬gramme Indogermanische Grammatik and the homony¬mous monograph series founded by Jerzy KURYŁOWICZ, continued by Manfred MAYR¬HO¬FER, and edited by Thomas LINDNER at Winter publishers in Heidelberg, in which Paola COTTICELLI KURRAS is responsible for Volume V, Indo-European Syntax, Fascicle 5: Participles and Fascicle VIII: Syntax of sentence, and Velizar SADOVSKI for Volume IV, Word-Formation of Indo-European, Fasci¬cle 2a: No¬m¬inal Derivation and Fascicle 2b: Verbal Derivation. The work of the research cluster dealing with aspects of morphosyntactic com-peti¬tion on the level of ex¬pres¬sion has been carried on be¬tween 2014 and 2016. It has been distin¬guished by the Thyssen Foun¬dation by generous financing of two special resear¬chers’ positions, for Alfredo RIZZA and Michael FRO¬TSCHER, at the University of Verona. Beside the preparation of the monographs, in the course of the project work the Editors organized an international Symposium under the title In Participle We Predicate that took place at the University of Verona in March 2014. Thus, the present volume unites studies of the Project team with relevant contributions of the parti¬cip¬ants in this Sym¬po¬sium – Claudia FABRIZIO (University of Chieti), Federico GIUSFREDI (University of Vero¬na), and Maria NAPOLI (University of Vercelli), on topics of morphology and syntax of infinite verbal forms in Ancient Indo-European languages. Two further contributions to the same symposium, by Vittorio Spring¬field TOMELLERI and by Velizar SADOVSKI, have mean¬while been sub¬mitted for print to a linguistic journal and a jubilee volume, respectively. Since the very beginning, this scholarly co-operation has been enjoying extremely generous support from our home institutions. We would like to thank to the University of Verona (and especially its Dipartimento di Culture e Civiltà) for the generous financial support of this publication. The Austrian Academy of Sciences, and especially its Institute of Iranian Studies, in fruitful co-operation with the Vienna Linguistic Society, kindly hosted two further project meetings and provided working and travelling oppor¬tunities with relevance for the project. It is a pleasant obligation to the authors of these lines to express their sin¬cere gratitude to these renowned scholarly institutions for giving our research team its academic home. Further presen¬¬ta¬tions of project relevant results and working meetings of the group took place in the frame¬work of several the¬matic con¬fe¬r¬ences and panels such as the Conference in honour of Prof. Dr. Rüdiger Schmitt (Vi¬en¬na 2014), the Olomouc Linguistic Colloquium (2016), the Symposium The ritual sphere in Verona (2016), the Jubilee Conference 200 Jahre Indo¬ger¬manistik in Berlin and Jena (2016) as well as the Fachtagung of the So¬ciety of Indo-European Studies (Indogermanische Gesellschaft) in Vienna (2016). Highlights of the studies on syntax and word formation of the participles will be published within the above-mentioned individual fascicles of the two re¬spective vo¬lumes of the Indogermanische Grammatik (the first relevant fascicle is prepared for submission already in 2017). A special mono¬graph con¬taining project material with pertinence concerning participle in Anato¬li¬an by Michael FROTSCHER will appear as one of the next issues of the Studien zur Historisch-Vergleichenden Sprach¬wissen¬schaft series edited by Harald BICHLMEIER and Velizar SADOVSKI at BAAR Pub-lishers in Hamburg. For their enthusiasm and engagement in the intense intel¬lec¬tu¬al contact concerning the highly interesting avatars of the category of participle in the field of tension between inflectional morphology, word formation, syntax and text linguistics, we are grateful to all authors involved and their home institu¬tions. We are very grateful to Michael FROTSCHER and Federico GIUS¬FREDI for compiling the Registers of this volume. Moreover, we would like to underline the invaluable help we enjoyed for the part of the co-or¬ga-ni¬zers of the Verona workshop, Stella MERLON and Roberta MENE¬GHEL. We cordially thank the Holz¬hausen Verlag in Vienna, represented by his Director Robert LICHTNER and the referent for the present publication, Jo-hanna WACH¬TER, for our highly professional and very pleasant co-operation, as well as, again, the Thyssen Foundation with its referent Ricarda BIEN¬BECK. And, to finish with a climax, we would like to express our war¬mest gra¬ti¬tude to the Corresponding Member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Prof. Oswald PANAGL (Salzburg), as Co-editor of the Indogerma¬ni¬sche Text¬lin¬gui¬stik, Po¬e¬tik und Stilistik publication series, in which our vol¬ume is appearing, for continuous scholarly inspira¬tion, sincere friendship and active support in our long-standing exchange of ideas – and in so many joint dialogues between Verona, Munich, Salzburg and Vienna.