In November 1968 I had the luck to attend the Introduction to Comparative Indo-European Grammar of E. Benveniste and to learn Sanskrit (both in Paris). Since then I have devoted my life to Indo-European linguistics. After training in Philadelphia and Erlangen and teaching in the Johns Hopkins and Princeton Universities I came to Zürich in 1986. I find myself most strongly drawn to the oldest texts of Greek (dialect inscriptions, archaic poetry, Mycenaean), Indic (the Rg and other Vedas) and Anatolian (Hittite), while the close cooperation with the Department of Classics here has nurtured my enthusiasm for the historical grammar of Latin and its relatives. I reject the widespread belief that all the great discoveries have already been made in this field; on the contrary, increasing specialisation makes it all the easier for a true comparatist to notice problems that are not perceptible to experts on the individual languages. Much of my research involves a relatively neglected field, that of the Indo-European indeclinables or "particles". For others, these are just the residue which remains after all recognisable roots, suffixes, and endings have been analysed. My belief that this morpheme class is as worthy of note and of systematic investigation as those other three has led to various studies both general and specific. Other research interests include inherited phraseology, both poetic (formulas) and non-poetic; the internal relative chronology of the IE protolanguage, especially as traceable through the analysis of interferences and metanalyses within the protolanguage; and collecting evidence for older stages of nominal and verbal inflection from compounds and univerbations.
 

My Philosophy

Bibliography G.E. Dunkel (PDF, 128 KB)

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