--- title: "Convergences between Semitic and Indo-European languages: a" description: "This short polemical reply in historical linguistics, not NLP, defends Giuseppe Ieropoli's 2018 book on Giovanni Semerano… 14 references." authors: ["Giuseppe Ieropoli"] year: 2020 venue: "Lea 8" source: "https://oajournals.fupress.net/index.php/bsfm-lea/article/view/11008" doi: "10.13128/lea-1824-484x-11008" licence: "CC BY (journal licence per DOAJ; Lea)" licence_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" summary_licence: "Elamur Cosmic License" title_orig: "Convergenze tra lingue semitiche e lingue indo-europee. Replica a Sergio Basso" title_lang: "it" canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/ieropoli-2020-convergenze-tra-lingue-semitiche-e/" --- [Elamur Research](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/ieropoli-2020-convergenze-tra-lingue-semitiche-e/) [home](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/) / [2020](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/2020/page/9/) / Convergences between Semitic and Indo-European languages: a reply to Sergio Basso # Convergences between Semitic and Indo-European languages: a reply to Sergio Basso *Original (Italian): Convergenze tra lingue semitiche e lingue indo-europee. Replica a Sergio Basso* **Authors:** Giuseppe Ieropoli · **Year:** 2020 · **Venue:** Lea 8 · **Publisher:** [Firenze University Press](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/publishers/firenze-university-press/) · **Licence:** [CC BY (journal licence per DOAJ; Lea)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) **Links:** [Publisher's page](https://doi.org/10.13128/lea-1824-484x-11008) · [PDF](https://oajournals.fupress.net/index.php/bsfm-lea/article/download/11008/11931) · [DOI 10.13128/lea-1824-484x-11008](https://doi.org/10.13128/lea-1824-484x-11008) · [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W4399270396) **Citations:** 0 citations (OpenAlex, 2026-10-14) ## Summary This short polemical reply in historical linguistics, not NLP, defends Giuseppe Ieropoli's 2018 book on Giovanni Semerano against Sergio Basso's critical review (Lea 7, 2018). Basso had dismissed Semerano's claims of deep Semitic, especially Akkadian, influence on Indo-European languages. He recommended instead older comparativists (Keller, Lewy, Lokotsch) and modern Nostratic scholars, whose work rests on family-tree genealogy. Ieropoli corrects several factual errors in the review and restates the nine theses of his book. These include: - giving lexical semantics priority over phonetics and morphosyntax - criticising the circularity of Stammbaumtheorie and strict sound laws - noting that Semitic comparison leans on Arabic and Northwest Semitic and largely ignores Akkadian He argues that the vague "Mediterranean substrate" label, including Beekes' pre-Greek substrate, is used to downplay Semitic input. He cites Vittore Pisani and Giovanni Garbini as respected scholars who made similar anti-genealogical criticisms. The piece matters as a methodological argument for contact- and area-based explanations over pure tree models. ## Key points - The reply responds to a 2018 review article by Basso, whose Italian title translates as "On the convergences between Semitic and Indo-European" and which assessed Ieropoli (2018), *Giovanni Semerano e la dicotomia indoeuropeisti-semitisti*. It appears in Lea 8, pp. 539–543. - It corrects facts in the review: - Semerano graduated in Florence, not Bari. - Semerano did cite Bernal, critically, in his 2001 book *L'infinito*. - The book never made the paretymology claim attributed to it. - It faults Beekes' *Etymological Dictionary of Greek* (2010) for leaving its pre-Greek non-Indo-European substrate undefined and never calling it Semitic. - It quotes Pisani (1969, 1978) and Garbini (2003) against the genealogical model. Garbini held that Semitic-like Greek vocabulary was native from the start rather than borrowed. - It notes that many of Semerano's etymologies also hold under Bomhard's Nostratic framework (2018). It calls for future work on bilingualism (Rubio 2007, Weinreich) and on alloglottography in the Syro-Mesopotamian area. ## Interesting ideas - An undefined catch-all category can quietly absorb every uncertain case and hide a systematic signal; the author says the "Mediterranean substrate" plays exactly this role. - A framework is weak when its key assumptions are also its tests, as the author charges against exceptionless sound laws within tree theory. - Agreement between methodologically very different approaches carries real weight, as when Semerano's etymologies also survive a Nostratic reading. - The author treats languages as shaped by contact and mutual interference rather than as pure branches of one tree. - The author gives meaning and lexicon priority over surface form, which he views as the shallower layer of language. ## For Mova How these ideas could serve Mova, our small open language model — its files, stages and tests: - **I1** (world): Track how many entities or relations fall into fallback "unknown/other" ontology classes, and treat a growing bucket as a sign of missing knowledge rather than resolved cases. - **I2** (learn): Never score self-induced repair rules on silver data produced or filtered by those same rules; keep held-out gold sets and negative controls built independently. - **I3** (learn): Count witness-parser agreement as strong silver evidence only when the witnesses differ in kind, such as the perceptron parser vs gparse vs an LLM teacher, not near-duplicates. - **I4** (tree): For UD dialect conversion, model treebank conventions as a network of overlapping influences with per-relation mappings, instead of assuming one canonical parent scheme. - **I5** (frames): When morphology and VerbNet role constraints disagree on a frame assignment, let the semantic constraints win and record why, keeping the decision explainable. *Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.* ## Institutions Also on the byline: [Parthenope University of Naples](https://ror.org/05pcv4v03). 📚 Shelves (2): [🎭 Arts and Humanities](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/) · 9,296 works · [🗣️ Language and Linguistics](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/language-and-linguistics/) · 9,206 works 🧭 Topics (1): [Semitic languages](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/semitic-languages/) · 1,484 works ## Cite Cite as: Giuseppe Ieropoli. 2020. Convergenze tra lingue semitiche e lingue indo-europee. Replica a Sergio Basso. Lea 8. The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. ```bibtex @inproceedings{ieropoli2020convergenze, title = {{Convergenze tra lingue semitiche e lingue indo-europee. Replica a Sergio Basso}}, author = {Giuseppe Ieropoli}, booktitle = {Lea 8}, year = {2020}, doi = {10.13128/lea-1824-484x-11008}, url = {https://doi.org/10.13128/lea-1824-484x-11008} } ``` - [← previous COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF SOME TIGRINYA PROVERBS](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/busau-2020-comparative-analysis-some-tigrinya-proverbs/) - [next → Featuring of Islam in the writings, particularly Old Testament commentaries, of Adrianus Van Selms (1906-1984)](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/dockrat-2020-featuring-islam-writings-particularly-old/) - [↑ back to papers of 2020](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/2020/page/9/) ## References 14 references, 0 of them with a card of ours. ↗ leads to the work, «find» searches for one we have no id for yet. 1. Balzaretti Claudio (1996), “Recensione a G. Semerano, Le origini della cultura europea, Leo S. Olschki, Firenze 1984-1994”, Rivista Biblica Italiana XLIV, 3, 351-354. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Balzaretti+Claudio+%281996%29%2C+%E2%80%9CRecensione+a+G%2E+Semerano%2C+Le+origini+della+cultura+europea%2C+Leo+S%2E+Olschki%2C+Firenze+1984%2D1994%E2%80%9D%2C+Rivista+Biblica+Italiana+XLIV%2C+3%2C+351%2D354%2E) 2. Basso Sergio (2018), “Sulle convergenze tra semitico e indoeuropeo”, LEA – Lingue e letterature d’Oriente e d’Occidente VII, 7, 147-170, doi: 10.13128/LEA-1824-484x-24410. [↗](https://doi.org/10.13128/lea-1824-484x-24410) 3. Beekes R.S.P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Leiden, Brill. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Beekes+R%2ES%2EP%2E+%282010%29%2C+Etymological+Dictionary+of+Greek%2C+Leiden%2C+Brill%2E) 4. Bomhard Allan (2018 [2014]), A Comprehensive Introduction to Nostratic Comparative Linguistics, Florence SC, s.e., \<[https://archive.org/details/BomhardAComprehensiveIntroductionToNostraticCompar-ativeLinguistics_201402](https://archive.org/details/BomhardAComprehensiveIntroductionToNostraticCompar-ativeLinguistics_201402)> (11/2019). [↗](https://archive.org/details/BomhardAComprehensiveIntroductionToNostraticCompar-ativeLinguistics_201402) 5. Garbini Giovanni (2003), “Semitico, Indeuropeo e sostrato indomediterraneo”, in Paolo Marrassini (ed.), Semitic and Assyriological Studies. Presented to P. Fronzaroli by Pupils and Colleagues, Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz Verlag, 185-197. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Garbini+Giovanni+%282003%29%2C+%E2%80%9CSemitico%2C+Indeuropeo+e+sostrato+indomediterraneo%E2%80%9D%2C+in+Paolo+Marrassini+%28ed%2E%29%2C+Semitic+and+Assyriological+Studies%2E+Presented+to+P%2E+Fronzaroli+by+Pupils+and+Colleagues%2C+Wiesbad) 6. Ieropoli Giuseppe (2018), Giovanni Semerano e la dicotomia indoeuropeisti-semitisti, Lavis, La Finestra editrice. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Ieropoli+Giuseppe+%282018%29%2C+Giovanni+Semerano+e+la+dicotomia+indoeuropeisti%2Dsemitisti%2C+Lavis%2C+La+Finestra+editrice%2E) 7. Pisani Vittore (1969), Lingue e culture, Brescia, Paideia. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Pisani+Vittore+%281969%29%2C+Lingue+e+culture%2C+Brescia%2C+Paideia%2E) 8. (1978), Mantissa, Brescia, Paideia. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%281978%29%2C+Mantissa%2C+Brescia%2C+Paideia%2E) 9. Rubio Gonzalo (2007), “Writing in Another Tongue: Alloglottography in the Ancient Near East”, in S.L. Sanders (ed.), Margins of Writing, Origin of Cultures, Chicago, The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago; O.I. Seminars, 2, 33-70, \<[https://oi.uchicago.edu/sites/oi.uchicago.edu/](https://oi.uchicago.edu/sites/oi.uchicago.edu/) files/uploads/shared/docs/ois2_2007.pdf> (11/2019). [↗](https://oi.uchicago.edu/sites/oi.uchicago.edu/) 10. Semerano Giovanni (1984), Le origini della cultura europea, vol. I, Firenze, Leo S. Olschki. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Semerano+Giovanni+%281984%29%2C+Le+origini+della+cultura+europea%2C+vol%2E+I%2C+Firenze%2C+Leo+S%2E+Olschki%2E) 11. (1994), Le origini della cultura europea, vol. II, Firenze, Leo S. Olschki. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%281994%29%2C+Le+origini+della+cultura+europea%2C+vol%2E+II%2C+Firenze%2C+Leo+S%2E+Olschki%2E) 12. (2001), L’infinito. Un equivoco millenario: le antiche civiltà del Vicino Oriente e le origini del pensiero greco, Milano, Mondadori. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%282001%29%2C+L%E2%80%99infinito%2E+Un+equivoco+millenario%3A+le+antiche+civilt%C3%A0+del+Vicino+Oriente+e+le+origini+del+pensiero+greco%2C+Milano%2C+Mondadori%2E) 13. Silvestri Domenico (2008), “Sostrati mediterranei rivisitati”, in Francesco Aspesi, Vermondo Brugnatelli, A.L. Lallow, Claudia Rosenzweig (a cura di), Il mio cuore è a Oriente. Scritti di linguistica storica, filologia e cultura ebraica dedicati a Maria Luisa Mayer Modena, Milano, Cisalpino, 299-309. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Silvestri+Domenico+%282008%29%2C+%E2%80%9CSostrati+mediterranei+rivisitati%E2%80%9D%2C+in+Francesco+Aspesi%2C+Vermondo+Brugnatelli%2C+A%2EL%2E+Lallow%2C+Claudia+Rosenzweig+%28a+cura+di%29%2C+Il+mio+cuore+%C3%A8+a+Oriente%2E+Scritti+di+linguistica+) 14. Weinreich Uriel (2008 [1953]), Lingue in contatto, Torino, Utet. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Weinreich+Uriel+%282008+%5B1953%5D%29%2C+Lingue+in+contatto%2C+Torino%2C+Utet%2E) *Updated 24 October 2026*