Overview

It is a long-standing tradition dating to at least the 1970s that the philologists—both students and staff—meet every Tuesday in term time for the Comparative Philology Graduate Seminar. Each term, the seminar has a different overarching topic; there are, however, certain trends.

In Michaelmas, the philologists consider a general linguistic topic and its applicability to (largely) ancient Indo-European languages; in the past, these topics included: accent; the reconstructability of syntax; moods; metre; language contact; and many more.

In Hilary Term, the structure and history of a language or language family is dealt with. Contributions come from specialists in the field as well as those who have only recently taken it up. In the past, the languages studied have included: Hieroglyphic Luwian; Old English; Faliscan; Old Irish; Tocharian; and many others.

In Trinity Term, students and staff present their Work in Progress; this usually involves MPhil and DPhil students sharing the findings of their dissertations.

The seminar takes place every Tuesday, 2.15–4pm in the Faculty of Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics (Clarendon Institute, Walton St). For more information and in the case of any queries, please get in touch with the convenors of the seminar as specified in the announcements below.

Current Seminar: Avestan

Date	Week	Speaker & Title
28 January	2	John Lowe “The Avestan language in its (Indo-)Iranian context” Elizabeth Tucker "Recent developments in the study of Avestan"
4 February	3	Tim Barnes “Avestan phonology I: Writing system and vocalism” Text: Selections from the Hōm Yašt (Younger Avestan)
11 February	4	Paige Crawley “Avestan phonology II: Consonantism” Text: Selections from the Hōm Yašt (Younger Avestan)
18 February	5	Gabriele Giannecchini “Avestan morphology I: Nouns and pronouns” Text: Yasna 44 (Andreas Willi)
25 February	6	Pat Snidvongs “Avestan morphology II: The verb ” Text: Yasna 44 (Andreas Willi)
4 March	7	Althea Sovani “Avestan morphosyntax (case usage, tense/aspect/mood)” Text: Yasna 29 ("Complaint of the cow") (Simon Fries)
11 March	8	Setayesh Dashti "Avestan clause syntax" Text: Yasna 29 ("Complaint of the cow") (Simon Fries)

Past Seminars

Year	Michaelmas	Hilary	Trinity
2024-25	Nominal Word Formation in Indo-European
2023–24	The Future in Indo-European	Albanian	Work in Progress
2022–23	Alphabetic Writing in the Indo-European World	Old High German	Work in Progress
2021–22	Periphrasis in Indo-European	Hittite	Work in Progress
2020–21	Accent and Rhythm	Phrygian	Work in Progress
2019–20	The Language and Linguistics of Ancient Humour	Hieroglyphic Luwian	Work in Progress
2018–19	Ancient Grammar and Linguistics	Armenian	Work in Progress
2017–18	Reconstructing the Syntax of Proto-Indo-European	Old English	Work in Progress
2016–17	Why languages are similar: contact, drift, inheritance	Tocharian	Work in Progress
2015–16	Origins of the Greek Verb	Old Persian	Work in Progress
2014–15	Participles	Old Irish	Work in Progress
2013–14	Moods	Gothic	Work in Progress
2012–13	Towards a synchronic Grammar of Proto-Indo-European	Faliscan	Work in Progress
2011–12	Metre in Indo-European	Middle Iranian	Work in Progress
2010–11	Indo-European dialects and subgrouping	Old Church Slavonic	Work in Progress
2009–10	Definiteness	Etruscan	Work in Progress
2008–9	Ergativity and Indo-European	Lydian	Work in Progress
2007–8	Aspect	Armenian	Work in Progress
2006–7	Approaches to Indo-European myth and religion	Tocharian	Work in Progress
2005–6	Grammatical gender in Indo-European	Lithuanian	Work in Progress
2004–5	Relative clauses	Celtiberian	Work in Progress
2003–4	Indo-European Accentuation: Problems in accentuation	Gothic	Work in Progress
2002–3	Imperatives: Paradigms and Politeness	Venetic	Work in Progress
2001–2	Analogy	The Languages of Lycia	Work in Progress
2000–1	The Comparative Method and its Discovery: Two Centuries of the Indo-European Phonology	Germanic	Work in Progress
1999–2000	Writing and Literacy	Tocharian	Work in Progress
1998–99	Names and Naming in Indo-European Languages	Language and History	Work in Progress
1997–98	Etymology	Old Persian	Work in Progress
1996–97	"Particles" in the Indo-European Languages	Laryngeals and Indo-European	Work in Progress
1995–96	The Infinitive in the Indo-European Languages	Middle and Passive in the Indo-European Languages	Lycian
1994–95	Prepositions, Postpositions, and Preverbs in the Indo-European Languages	Introduction to Avestan	Early Italic Texts
1993–94	Reconstruction of Indo-European Culture: the Bestiary	Writing and scripts	Greek and non Greek in Asia Minor
1992–93	Lydian	Hieroglyphic Luwian	Work in Progress
1991–92	The Reconstruction of Indo-European Morphology: Ablaut and Nominal Inflection	The Relative Clause in Indo-European and in the Indo-European Languages	Work in Progress
1990–91	Archaism and Innovation in the Indo-European Languages	Indo-European Reconstruction and Development: the case of the Laryngeals	Tocharian
1989–90	The discovery of Indo-European and of the Comparative Method: Indo-European Phonology from 1816 to the 1980’s	Old Persian	Minor languages of Ancient Italy
1988–89	Writing and Scripts	Anatolian texts	–
1987–88	Prepositions, Postpositions, Preverbs etc. in the Indo-European Languages	Old Iranian	Old Iranian
1986–87	Infinitives	Graduate class	Graduate class
1985–86	The IE consonantal system – the glottalic theory	The relative clause in Indo-European
1984–85	Aspects of the Laryngeal Theory		Tocharian
1983–84		Indo-European Accentuation
1982–83	Graduate class	Graduate class	Comparative Philology: Graduate Class
1981–82		Old Persian
1980–81		Hieroglyphic Luwian
1979–80	Tocharian
1978–79	Lydian
1977–78		Continental Celtic
1976–77	Phrygian	Etruscan	Hieroglyphic Luwian
1975–76	Avestan | Old Church Slavonic	Old Irish
1974–75	Lycian	Lycian	Languages of Italy