The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread's Sequel

[abahot]

Just look at any dialect landscape - there are multiple innovations spreading through the dialect continuum, intersecting and overlapping in complex ways, such that there is no obvious way to build a family tree.

The point I was trying to make is that Indo-European specifically might be even more complicated because of the repeated history of IE language groups displacing already-existing IE language groups. Indo-Iranian on the one hand seems fairly clear-cut in terms of its location in the Indo-European family (eastern group, breaking free from the dialect continuum rather late and sharing many late innovations) probably because it expanded into territory where few or no IE languages were before. But then we have Germanic, which might be so hard to place in the tree precisely because the area it passed through while going from late IE dialect to Proto-Germanic proper was such a mess of diverse IE dialects.

[WeepingElf]

In my model, Germanic is a Northern (=Non-Anatolian) IE language that was long separated from its sister languages by the Southern (=more closely related to Anatolian than to Northern IE) IE languages of the Bell Beaker culture which eclipsed the Corded Ware culture in what is now, more or less, Germany. During this isolation in southern Scandinavia, the IE dialect ancestral to Germanic underwent a number of idiosyncratic developments, including the *T set of stops becoming phonemically aspirated (they may IMHO have been phonetically aspirated in PIE already) and the *D set devoiced; at a later stage, the voiceless and voiced aspirated stops became spirants, completing the Germanic consonant shift.

[abahot]

I've seen this theory before, probably on this thread. But it is rather telling that the more geographically isolated a given IE branch is from other branches, the more it seems to neatly fit into the family tree.

[abahot]

Germanic is a Northern (=Non-Anatolian) IE language that was long separated from its sister languages by the Southern (=more closely related to Anatolian than to Northern IE) IE languages

What evidence is there that "Southern IE" languages were ever spoken widely or represented in Europe beyond Anatolian languages?

[WeepingElf]

Germanic is a Northern (=Non-Anatolian) IE language that was long separated from its sister languages by the Southern (=more closely related to Anatolian than to Northern IE) IE languages

What evidence is there that "Southern IE" languages were ever spoken widely or represented in Europe beyond Anatolian languages?

I am still researching this. The question is, what language did the Bell Beaker people speak, who are known to originate from the steppe, but probably further south than the Corded Ware people, according to genetics. It seems likely to connect this difference to the oldest known division within IE, that between Anatolian and all the rest. Of course, genes are poor guides to languages. But consider the alternatives. Either the Bell Beaker people spoke an "ordinary" IE language, perhaps Proto-Italo-Celtic. That's nice, but the Old European hydronymy seems to have been borrowed from another IE language, with traits such as an *a/*o merger not found in Italic and Celtic; and it leaves Anatolian unaccounted for. Or the Bell Beaker people, despite their genetic origin, spoke a non-IE language, perhaps an ancestor of Basque. There are indeed scholars such as Theo Vennemann who claim to have found Vasconic etymologies for the Old European hydronymy. But again, Anatolian remains unaccounted for. I have found a reference to an article that discusses the western IE affinities of Anatolian, and filed an interlibrary loan request for it; maybe I find support for my hypothesis there. I also feel as if the Insular Celtic languages look like a VSO version of Hittite in some ways, though I cannot put the finger on it yet.

[abahot]

It seems likely to connect this difference to the oldest known division within IE

But why? It seems that Anatolian languages split off before whatever division happened between Corded Ware / Bell Beaker peoples. The Suvorovo/Ezero cultures that spread from the Yamnaya area into the Balkans and Anatolia, which probably represented pre-proto-Anatolian languages, existed c. 4000 BC, around a millennium before Corded Ware was widespread in Europe. The Afanasevo culture, which was contemporaneous with Corded Ware, represented Tocharian which in your model is a "Northern IE" language, so I see no reason to posit that Corded Ware was "Southern IE".

[WeepingElf]

It seems likely to connect this difference to the oldest known division within IE

But why? It seems that Anatolian languages split off before whatever division happened between Corded Ware / Bell Beaker peoples. The Suvorovo/Ezero cultures that spread from the Yamnaya area into the Balkans and Anatolia, which probably represented pre-proto-Anatolian languages, existed c. 4000 BC, around a millennium before Corded Ware was widespread in Europe. The Afanasevo culture, which was contemporaneous with Corded Ware, represented Tocharian which in your model is a "Northern IE" language, so I see no reason to posit that Corded Ware was "Southern IE".

Indeed, it currently is just a speculation of mine for which I am trying to find evidence (and building my conlangs on ), and I am not sure about it at all.

[hwhatting]

so the last major breakthrough still is the laryngeal theory, and that's more than a century old, though it wasn't yet generally accepted when Pokorny edited his etymological dictionary in the late 1950s, and resistance against it did not really end until its last major opponent, Oswald Szemerényi, passed away in 1996.

For the record, Szemerényi was not an opponent of the laryngeal theory - the one place where laryngeals show up in Pokorny's dictionary (in the dicussion of "4. rei : rēi", Pok. 860) is actually due to a suggestion by Szemerényi; he just deviated from the current mainstream three-laryngeal version in that he assumed only one laryngeal.

[abahot]

Indeed, it currently is just a speculation of mine for which I am trying to find evidence (and building my conlangs on ), and I am not sure about it at all.

Fair enough. Wild speculation is awesome for conlangs.

[abahot]

he just deviated from the current mainstream three-laryngeal version in that he assumed only one laryngeal.

What reasons are there to only assume one laryngeal as opposed to reconstructing none at all?

[WeepingElf]

he just deviated from the current mainstream three-laryngeal version in that he assumed only one laryngeal.

What reasons are there to only assume one laryngeal as opposed to reconstructing none at all?

Reflexes in Hittite. Szemerényi reconstructed /h/ where Hittite has a consonantal reflex of a laryngeal. But he rejected the central assumption of the laryngeal theory, namely that those consonants were responsible for unexpected vowel colours.

[abahot]

Reflexes in Hittite. Szemerényi reconstructed /h/ where Hittite has a consonantal reflex of a laryngeal. But he rejected the central assumption of the laryngeal theory, namely that those consonants were responsible for unexpected vowel colours.

And what reasons are there for the three-laryngeal theory as opposed to the one-laryngeal theory? I assume the Greek triple reflex and ablaut patterns primarily?

[WeepingElf]

Exactly.

[abahot]

So I have a new theory about pre-PIE. If we look at the reconstructed primary eventive passive voice endings for verbs, we see:

1sg *-h₂er
2sg *-th₂er
3sg *-(t)or
1dl *-wosdʰh₂
1pl *-mosdʰh₂
2pl *-dʰh₂we
3pl *-ror, *-ntor

Of course, passive *-r is generally accepted, but the mysterious *-dʰh₂- also exists here. However, it appears that *-r- occurs following a vowel, and *-dʰh₂- otherwise. PIE *dʰ > *r is also attested, so it's not much of a stretch to propose that the ending **-dʰh₂- > *-r- following vowels (still unsure about the fate of *h₂ here). Now we can compare the reconstructed primary stative forms with the proposed pre-PIE passive endings:

1sg *-h₂e / **-h₂e-dʰh₂
2sg *-th₂e / **-th₂e-dʰh₂
3sg *-e / **-(t)o-dʰh₂
1dl *-we / **-wos-dʰh₂
1pl *-me / **-mos-dʰh₂
2pl *-e / **-dʰh₂-we
3pl *-ēr / **-ro-dʰh₂

(*-wos / *-we and *-mos / *-me are already attested alternants elsewhere in the verbal paradigm, which may explain 1dl and 1pl forms.) The resemblance to the stative endings were already obvious, but the meat of this new hypothesis is that PIE passive *-r < pre-PIE **-dʰh₂.

But what I'm curious about is, why is the 2pl so different? Clearly, *-er < **-e-dʰh₂ would be expected. But we find *-dʰh₂-we, which has the passive morpheme preceding the person morpheme, rather than the other way around. And why is the person morpheme the same as in the 1dl?

[WeepingElf]

Reflexes in Hittite. Szemerényi reconstructed /h/ where Hittite has a consonantal reflex of a laryngeal. But he rejected the central assumption of the laryngeal theory, namely that those consonants were responsible for unexpected vowel colours.

And what reasons are there for the three-laryngeal theory as opposed to the one-laryngeal theory? I assume the Greek triple reflex and ablaut patterns primarily?

Yes. PIE was a lot messier before the laryngeal theory: there were as many as six different ablaut series, very unevenly distributed, some encompassing only a handful of roots. The laryngeal theory reduced all of them to just one, by explaining the other five by vowel colouring and lengthening by adjacent laryngeals. Also, the Greek "prosthetic vowels" and triple reflex were a complete mystery, but now we perfectly understand them. All in all, thus, it had great explanatory power, and was quickly accepted at least by younger scholars (while many older ones stuck to the Brugmannian model which they had grown up with - this is a usual pattern with such paradigm shifts: the young scholars accept the new paradigm, while the old ones reject it, and the paradigm shift is only completed when the old scholars have died).

[Zju]

The last major new theory apparently was the glottalic theory, but that has fallen out of favour again with most IEists; so the last major breakthrough still is the laryngeal theory

Isn't tonal theory for pre-PIE generally accepted? I thought it was the best - and about only - way to explain the peculiar PIE root structure and suffix variations. IIRC mobile s, too, is more recent than laryngeal theory.

But what I'm curious about is, why is the 2pl so different? Clearly, *-er < **-e-dʰh₂ would be expected. But we find *-dʰh₂-we, which has the passive morpheme preceding the person morpheme, rather than the other way around. And why is the person morpheme the same as in the 1dl?

Analogical levelings, borrowings between paradigms, morpheme boundary reanalysis (what was the exact term?), folk etymologies, yadda yadda. A lot more factors than simple sound changes are at play when it comes to affixes. And that's if that analysis is even the correct one.

[abahot]

A lot more factors than simple sound changes are at play when it comes to affixes. And that's if that analysis is even the correct one.

Even without accepting my explanation for the origin of the PIE passive suffix, it's clear by looking at the paradigms that the passive paradigm is formed by extending the stative paradigm with a suffix. So it makes no sense that in only one specific case, the morphemes would be in the opposite order.

[WeepingElf]

Isn't tonal theory for pre-PIE generally accepted?

What? I don't even have an idea what you are talking about!

[hwhatting]

And what reasons are there for the three-laryngeal theory as opposed to the one-laryngeal theory? I assume the Greek triple reflex and ablaut patterns primarily?

As Elf already confirmed, those are the main reasons. There are some more - h1 isn't repesented by a laryngeal in Anatolian, but shows similar effects in ablaut; only h2 causes aspiration of preceding stops in Indo-Iranian, h3 is supposed (there is less agreeement on this) to cause voicing of a preceding voiceless stop (while the other laryngeals don't).
There are also serious scholars who operate with a four-laryngeal system; the widest known work that uses this is probably "The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo- European World" by Mallory and Adams.

Even without accepting my explanation for the origin of the PIE passive suffix, it's clear by looking at the paradigms that the passive paradigm is formed by extending the stative paradigm with a suffix. So it makes no sense that in only one specific case, the morphemes would be in the opposite order.

Two remarks:
1) Don't call it passive. PIE didn't have a passive; it had the predecessor to what became the mediopassive in Anatolian, Greek and Indo-Iranian and the passive in some other branches; it functioned more like the Greek and Indo-Iranian mediopassive or "middle", i.e. expressing actions done by the subject for or to itself. In the literature, it's called mediopassive or stative (the latter is mostly applied to the common predecessor ending set for the mediopassive and the perfect).
2) I don't know where your reconstruction is from, but, different to the active endings, there isn't actually a generally accepted ending set for the PIE mediopassive. Beyond the assumption that the endings of the perfect and the mediopassive (and the Anatolian hi-conjugation) go back to the same PIE (or pre-PIE) category often called "stative", there is little agreement on the endings; you'll find reconstructions that look Greco-Aryan (no "r") and reconstructions that look more like Anatolian. Many scholars assume, though, that *-r originally belonged only in the 3rd plural (where it shows up in the perfect) and spread from there, contradicting the reconstruction you posted. My former teacher, the late Erich Neu, showed already back in the 1960s that the spread of /r/ through the mediopassive paradigm can still be observed in the development from Old to New Hittite.
Many scholars also assume that the 2nd plural is a late addition to the system, and that the mediopassive / stative had an ending system that deviated from the later typical IE three persons, two numbers system.

[hwhatting]

Isn't tonal theory for pre-PIE generally accepted?

What? I don't even have an idea what you are talking about!

I guess he refers to the idea that ablaut is due to stress and tone in (Pre-)PIE? That's indeed widely accepted in principle, but there are vicious debates about the how, when, and what, including the question on whether tone ever came into it.