Preface and Acknowledgments
This book represents a thoroughly revised and partially restructured version of my doctoral dissertation, which I defended in March 2020 at Leiden University. The thesis was written under the supervision of Michaël Peyrot, Alexander Lubotsky, and Giorgio Banti, as the outcome of a three-year jointly supervised doctorate at Leiden University and Sapienza University of Rome. The work was accepted for publication by Brill two years later. I thank Olav Hackstein and Craig Melchert for allowing me to publish in their series as well as Elisa Perotti for her collaboration and constant support throughout the publication process.
This book could not have been written without the support of many professors, teachers, and friends, whom I was lucky enough to meet during my studies. The words below are intended as a sincere token of gratitude to all of them.
First of all, I am grateful to Michaël Peyrot, who has invested a lot of time and energy in my personal growth and training. I am indebted to him for his teaching and his constant support, and not a day goes by that I do not miss our discussions. Sasha Lubotsky has always been there to help with any questions about Tocharian historical linguistics and Indo-European reconstruction, duly providing food for thought and illuminating suggestions. I hope their teachings have borne the fruit they deserve.
I thank Claudia A. Ciancaglini, who introduced me to linguistics, and Mauro Maggi, who taught me how to think about texts and languages. Under their guidance, I grew up first as a student and then as a scholar, and they have always been there for help and advice over the years. From them and other teachers from Sapienza, among whom Paolo Di Giovine and Marco Mancini need to be mentioned, I have learned a lot about historical linguistics and philology. In 2020 I won a postdoctoral position in Sapienza tutored by Marco Mancini. I thank him once again for enabling me to work on turning my thesis into a book.
I owe a special debt of gratitude to Melanie Malzahn, who was a member of my Promotiecommissie and gave important feedback and constructive criticism to the work. Also, I am indebted to Ronald I. Kim, who has always provided detailed, objective, and constructive advice, without ever imposing his own opinions. His suggestions have allowed me to improve many sections of this book.
Over the past years, I have greatly benefited from thriving discussions with other scholars, who commented on this work since it was a thesis and discussed with me several points of typological linguistics, Indo-European reconstruction, and Tocharian philology and linguistics. I thank Douglas Q. Adams, Giorgio Banti, Vincenzo Faraoni, Olav Hackstein, Artemij Keidan, Alwin Kloekhorst, Leonild Kulikov, Anna Pompei, Tijmen Pronk, and the anonymous reviewer of the manuscript for their comments. Special thanks go to Luca Alfieri, who read a first draft of this book and whose keen comments have produced several improvements.
I would also like to thank my colleagues and friends, who were always willing to share their expertise, successes, and failures, in particular Chams Bernard, Corinne D’Antonio, Federico Dragoni, Marta Frenguelli, and Tao Pan.
Working on this book would not have been the same had it not been for my family, who have always kept me driving on. I thank in particular my mother Bruna and my grandfather Sergio, who both invested a lot of energy in my education. My final heartfelt thanks go to Matteo for his undying support and care along this journey together.
Alessandro Del Tomba
Pannone (Trento), November 2022