Ronald I. Kim Bücher

Within the historical phonology of Tocharian, the elucidation of special phonological developments in word-final position, or Auslautgesetze, faces several well-known obstacles. Relatively few inflectional endings in Tocharian have unambiguous Proto-Indo-European sources, and of those, even fewer have a well-understood prehistory; even such a basic set of morphemes as the person-number endings of the present/subjunctive poses a number of as yet unsolved puzzles. The situation is even worse in the noun, where, due to extensive remodeling of the inherited PIE system of nominal inflection and derivation, it is often difficult to identify appropriate comparanda for Tocharian nominal forms and to distinguish the effects of regular sound change from the workings of analogy. Finally, since the Proto- Tocharian nonhigh vowels *-a, *-ë, *-e, *-o were all lost in Tocharian A, only Tocharian B provides evidence for those vowels in word-final position.

Suppletion has garnered significant attention in recent linguistic research across various disciplines, including typology, morphological theory, and language acquisition. Understanding the history of suppleting paradigms is essential for formulating synchronic typological or morphological claims about suppletion and morphological irregularity. This volume seeks to enhance the synchronic perspective on suppletion by incorporating a diachronic approach, addressing the analysis, reconstruction, and evolution of suppletive morphology in both ancient and modern Indo-European and Afroasiatic languages. Contributions range from traditional analyses emphasizing etymology's role in the diachronic study of suppletion to discussions on contemporary debates regarding "strong" vs. "weak" suppletion and distinctions between inflectional, derivational, and stem suppletion. The volume also explores phonology, syntax, semantics, and language contact. Specific topics include the formation of perfect passive participles in Latin, double-copula systems in Celtic, Romance, and Basque, and the prehistory of heteroclitic nominal stems in Proto-Indo-European. Additional discussions cover suppletion in Afroasiatic languages, older Indo-Iranian, Tocharian, and the Modern East Iranian language Yaghnōbī, as well as Gothic passives and minimal word constraints in Arabic. This work will appeal to scholars of Indo-European and Afroasiatic languages, langua