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Within the field of ancient bilingualism, Sicily represents a unique terrain for analysis as a result of its incredibly rich linguistic history, in which 'colonial' languages belonging to branches as diverse as Italic (Oscan and Latin), Greek and Semitic (Phoenician) interacted with the languages of the natives (the elusive Sicel, Sicanian and Elymian). The result of this ancient melting-pot was a culture characterized by 'post-colonial' features such as ethnic hybridity, multilingualism and artistic and literary experimentation. While Greek soon emerged as the leading language, dominating official communication and literature, epigraphic sources and indirect evidence show that the minority languages held their ground down to the fifth century bc, and in some cases beyond. The first two parts of the volume discuss these languages and their interaction with Greek, while the third part focuses on the sociolinguistic revolution brought about by the arrival of the Romans. olga tribulato is Research Fellow in Greek language and literature at Ca' Foscari University, Venice. She has published on Greek morphology and dialectology, ancient scientific language, literary dialects and epigraphy, and co-edited

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In the majority of Greek compounds the head occurs on the right. Within this system, a number of left-oriented categories are tolerated, chiefly preposition- and verb-first compounds, but also a handful of minor groups. This article aims to provide a more thorough appraisal of a specific subtype of left-oriented compounds: those showing an adjectival head (type ισóεoς, αξιoλoγoς, etc.). It first provides an overview of the various types of left-oriented compounds in Greek (section 2). It then assesses the claim that adjectival left-oriented compounds derive from left-oriented syntactic phrases by supplying a full corpus of such forms, and comparing them to existing syntagms of the type adjective plus noun (section 3). The subsequent sections investigate the autonomous morphological reasons behind the left-headedness of such compounds, which the syntactic model does not adequately explain. Section 4.1 addresses the question of why such compounds could not have been right-oriented. Section 4.2 identifies the morphological features which—as in the case of prepositional compounds—characterise adjectives in left-oriented compounds, and are largely responsible for their placement on the left.

Nominal composition is an extremely productive means of word formation in Ancient Greek. Little has been written about it in English. Therefore, the present article gives a short introduction to nominal composition in this language in general before moving on to the earliest attested stage of the language, Mycenaean. An overview of nominal compounds of Mycenaean Greek is given and a classi®cation attempted. Thereafter, issues in their phonology and morphology are discussed and both the similarities with and dierences to later Greek established. It is concluded that Mycenaean, while preserving some archaic types, is already far advanced in the development of nominal composition typical for Greek.