Coordination strategies in Messapic

Abstract

Messapic, like many ancient Indo-European languages, shows evidence for the existence of more than one coordinating conjunction. Alongside an inherited Indo-European clitic =ti, comparable to Lat. =que or Gk. =τε, Messapic has also grammaticalised an additional coordinator anda from a lexical source. Although the two conjunctions are found in some strikingly similar contexts, this paper argues that they also show noteworthy functional differences, which can plausibly be contextualised against a broader cross-linguistic understanding of how novel coordinators grammaticalise. In this way, the typological study of coordination has the potential to contribute further insights into this fascinating—and as yet insufficiently understood—epigraphic language.