Benveniste Emile. Indo-European Language and Society

Coral Gables: University of Miami Press, 1973. — 581 p. — (Miami linguistics series 12). — ISBN 0-87024-250-4.This work belongs in a bountiful tradition. Less than a decade after Devoto’s Origini indeuropee, Benveniste, leaving aside most apparatus but ever so supremely in control of the data, has produced a classic. We may see it as a collection of monographs or as the systematic work which it is. We are told that while the evidence is all there in the etymological dictionaries, there is little previous discussion of the issues here formulated. This is because the author’s emphasis is not so much on the ancient foundations shared in common but the processes in the descendant languages and their regions. The approach is that of a linguist; correlation of the linguistic interpretations with extralinguistic matter is pointedly left to others. Language must indeed be a fertile source of history—whatever further relationship may exist between history and language—if purism of this kind, in the hands of a master, can produce such riches. To be sure, Benveniste’s purism is that of discipline and clarity, not of rigidity and exclusion; behind it is a wealth of general historical and sociological information.Preface.
Abbreviations.
Economy.
Livestock and Wealth.
Male and Sire.
A Lexical Opposition in Need of Revision: sūs and porcus.
Próbaton and the Homeric Economy.
Livestock and Money: pecu and pecunia.
Giving and Taking.
Gift and Exchange.
Giving, Taking, and Receiving.
Hospitality.
Personal Loyalty.
Purchase.
Two Ways of Buying.
Purchase and Redemption.
An Occupation without a Name: Commerce.
Economic Obligations.
Accountancy and Valuation.
Hiring and Leasing.
Price and Wages.
Credence and Belief.
Lending, Borrowing, and Debt.
Gratuitousness and Gratefulness.
The Vocabulary of Kinship.
Introduction.
The Importance of the Concept of Paternity.
Status of the Mother and Matrilinear Descent.
The Principle of Exogamy and its Applications.
The Indo-European Expression for «Marriage».
Kinship Resulting from Marriage.
Formation and Suffixation of the Terms for Kinship.
Words Derived from the Terms for Kinship.
Social Status.
Tripartition of Functions.
The Four Divisions of Society.
The Free Man.
Phílos.
The Slave and the Stranger.
Cities and Communities.
Royalty and its Privileges.
Rex.
Xšay- and Iranian Kingship.
Hellenic Kingship.
The Authority of the King.
Honour and Honours.
Magic Power.
Krátos.
Royalty and Nobility.
The King and his People.
Law.
Thémis.
Díkē.
Ius and the Oath in Rome.
*med- and the Concept of Measure.
Fas.
The censor and auctoritas.
The quaestor and the *prex.
The Oath in Greece.
Religion.
The «Sacred».
Avestan - spənta: yaoždāta.
Latin - sacer: sanctus.
Greek – hierós.
Greek - hósios, hosiē.
Greek – hágios.
The Libation
Sponsio.
Libatio.
The Sacrifice.
The Vow.
Prayer and Supplication.
The Latin Vocabulary of Signs and Omens.
Religion and Superstition.Table of Indo-European Languages.
Bibliographical Note.
Subject Index.
Word Index.
Index of Passages Quoted.