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The morphological expression of non-verbal predication is a geographically widespread, although not very frequent, typological feature. This paper highlights the existence of two radically contrasting types of non-verbal predicative inflection. Construction A has already been described in the literature. It consists of attaching person-sensitive inflection markers to non-verbal predicates, possibly extending this treatment to adverbs and adverbial phrases (locational and temporal), pronouns and quantifiers. This type is well attested in Uralic, Turkic, and Paleosiberian, as well as in some Amazonian language families (most notably Chicham), but it has also been pointed out for some sparse languages of Oceania and Africa. Such non-verbal person inflections diachronically stem from incorporation of conjugated copula elements. Construction B, by contrast, is much rarer and is described here for the first time. It also consists of a dedicated morphological form of the non-verbal predicate (limited, however, to nouns and adjectives), but such form stands out as morphologically lighter than any other form to be found in nouns or adjectives in argument or attribute position. While the latter forms carry some kind of case marker, the noun/adjective predicate merely consists (or historically did) of the word’s root. This type of construction can be found in the small Zamucoan family and still survives in some Tupí-Guaraní languages. Diachronic inspection of Semitic indicates, however, that this predicative strategy was possibly adopted in some ancient varieties, although at later stages it intertwined with the expression of referential specificity. The paper compares the two construction types, highlighting similarities and differences.

A number of ancient Syriac grammars are analysed, as far as the passages related to diathesis are concerned. It appears that the concept and the definition of diathesis vary diachronically, but also according to the theoretical framework chosen by the authors. The influence of different Greek and Arabic models (and of their interactions) causes variation in the perspective under which diathesis is conceived and described. Particular attention is devoted to the middle diathesis, which is attributed to Syriac exclusively in the translation of the Téchne Grammatiké, made by Huzaya in the VI century. The comparison of the Greek original with the Syriac translation may also shed some light on the concept of middle diathesis, as meant in the Téchne.

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The paper publishes the inedited document Miscellanea Medicea 719, ins. 56, n. 1 of Florence State Archive, containing the account of a journey by land from Hormuz to Venice, dated to 1575, preceded by a brief critical introduction. 19th century Italian historiography has attributed the account to Giovanni Battista Raimondi (1536 ca.-1614), scientific director of the Typographia Medicea (Rome 1584). Raimondi has been considered also as the author of the travel, describing his experience in the first person (plural). This paper argues, on linguistic and text-critical grounds, that Raimondi did not make such a travel, nor did he compose the account, but merely copied the document in the context of the preparation of a mission to Egypt and Persia of Giovanni Battista Vecchietti, who left to Alexandria in 1584, as a papal envoy.