The Corpus of the Epigraphy of the Italian Peninsula in the 1st Millennium BCE (CEIPoM) is a linguistic database which covers the Oscan, Umbrian, Old Sabellic, Messapic and Venetic languages, as well as epigraphic Latin up to 100 BCE. The database is hosted on GitHub and Zenodo, and provides manually annotated linguistic information on all levels of language structure, ranging from phonology to syntax. In providing a high-resolution digital dataset for language varieties that have until now been largely restricted to printed reference works, this corpus opens up new avenues for research into this unique ancient linguistic area.

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.

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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.

The Italic consonant stem ablative in -ĕ is usually regarded as an anomalous instance of locative contamination in the ablative singular case endings. This interpretation has long been recognized as problematic, given that the Italic ablative is functionally the result of syncretism with the Proto-Indo-European instrumental, rather than the locative. In addition, it is difficult to reconcile the traditional view with the early Latin epigraphic evidence, which suggests that the Latin consonant stem ending, like the ablative singular endings of all other declensions, once had a final dental (-ĕd). This paper reviews the evidence for the origin and reconstruction of the Italic consonant stem ablative within the broader context of the early development of the Italic case system. It provides further arguments against the conventional locative etymology, and concludes that the consonant reflex can plausibly be aligned with the regular reflexes in other declensions if it is instead derived from a zero-grade instrumental ending -h̥ ₁.