Zompist Bboard Again

I have a gut feeling as if the western IE languages (Italic, Celtic, Germanic) have changed their typology, perhaps under the influence of a "Bell Beaker" substratum, while the eastern ones (Balto-Slavic, Indo-Iranian etc.) are more conservative, and that the western languages thereby moved typologically closer to Anatolian; but this is indeed just a gut feeling, and I can't really say how much this is true.

WeepingElf wrote: ↑Wed Jan 12, 2022 1:04 pm I have a gut feeling as if the western IE languages (Italic, Celtic, Germanic) have changed their typology, perhaps under the influence of a "Bell Beaker" substratum, while the eastern ones (Balto-Slavic, Indo-Iranian etc.) are more conservative, and that the western languages thereby moved typologically closer to Anatolian; but this is indeed just a gut feeling, and I can't really say how much this is true.

What typological changes do you mean? AFAIK Indo Iranian languages are themselves very innovative, on par with Germanic-Romance Sprachbund. Persian is as far away from PIE as German or Italian, Hindi is almost as innovative as French.

AFAIK the only major change in Western Europe that took place was a switch from SOV to SVO word order. Otherwise there was just a gradual shift from fusional towards more analytic forms as happened in the entire IE family more or less

Otto Kretschmer wrote: ↑Thu Jan 13, 2022 11:58 am

WeepingElf wrote: ↑Wed Jan 12, 2022 1:04 pm I have a gut feeling as if the western IE languages (Italic, Celtic, Germanic) have changed their typology, perhaps under the influence of a "Bell Beaker" substratum, while the eastern ones (Balto-Slavic, Indo-Iranian etc.) are more conservative, and that the western languages thereby moved typologically closer to Anatolian; but this is indeed just a gut feeling, and I can't really say how much this is true.

What typological changes do you mean? AFAIK Indo Iranian languages are themselves very innovative, on par with Germanic-Romance Sprachbund. Persian is as far away from PIE as German or Italian, Hindi is almost as innovative as French.

I wasn't thinking of the modern Indo-Iranian languages, which are indeed very innovative, but of the ancient ones (Vedic, Sanskrit, Avestan, Old Persian), which are famously conservative.

AFAIK the only major change in Western Europe that took place was a switch from SOV to SVO word order. Otherwise there was just a gradual shift from fusional towards more analytic forms as happened in the entire IE family more or less

I am still researching these matters, but I think Annelies Kammenhuber wrote about these matters in her Hittite grammar in the Handbuch der Orientalistik (Kammenhuber didn't posit a Hittite-like substratum language in western Europe; indeed, she rejected the "Indo-Hittite" hypothesis and placed Anatolian near the western languages in the IE family tree). I don't have the book here now, but I have filed a loan request at the local university library and will get it in my hands tomorrow.

What I was primarily thinking about is that Late PIE was aspect-prominent and the ancient eastern languages still are, while the west shifted to tense-prominence as in Hittite. Hittite AFAIK even had a have-perfect; while it is true that this is an innovation in Germanic and Romance too late to be immediately influenced by Southern IE, maybe it was mediated by Gaulish (I don't know, though, whether Gaulish had anything like a have-perfect, so I am not convinced by this idea myself). I hope to find out more on these matters soon; but perhaps I am just misguided by my gut feeling

I don't see any particular conservatism of Ancient IA languages. They are simply old. Vedic Sanskrit is a fossilized form of the language from ca 1000 BC and Classical Sanskrit from 500 BC. We do not have any longer text in Latin until ca 200 BC and we do not have anything in Germanic languages until. 160 AD.

Otto Kretschmer wrote: ↑Thu Jan 13, 2022 2:02 pm I don't see any particular conservatism of Ancient IA languages. They are simply old. Vedic Sanskrit is a fossilized form of the language from ca 1000 BC and Classical Sanskrit from 500 BC. We do not have any longer text in Latin until ca 200 BC and we do not have anything in Germanic languages until. 160 AD.

You are of course right. Vedic and Avestan (and, to a somewhat lesser degree, the also quite conservative Ancient Greek) are just older than Latin and early Germanic, so it is no surprise to anyone that the former are "more conservative" than the latter. Indeed, I may be barking up a tree that exists only in my imagination

Otto Kretschmer wrote: ↑Thu Jan 13, 2022 2:02 pm I don't see any particular conservatism of Ancient IA languages. They are simply old. Vedic Sanskrit is a fossilized form of the language from ca 1000 BC and Classical Sanskrit from 500 BC.

Hm? o.0 Yes, some of the languages get fossilized - that does not mean they can only be conservative, it just means they get fossilized. (though i'm not sure its the right word for whats happening, its the word we're both using with the understanding of when written languages stop recording changes for one reason or another (or the changes get ignored until later writings are considered equally authoritative, such as Classical))

Heck, we moderns can read the English of Chaucer and The Bard with little difficulty. (for some, little may vary)
Chaucer's English didn't fossilize - his books just kept getting read, even as the language continued changing.

We do not have any longer text in Latin until ca 200 BC and we do not have anything in Germanic languages until. 160 AD.

Well thats not playing fair. Why would you expect long Latin or Germanic texts at, I'm assuming, 1000BC or thereabouts?

WeepingElf wrote: ↑Thu Jan 13, 2022 1:19 pm I am still researching these matters, but I think Annelies Kammenhuber wrote about these matters in her Hittite grammar in the Handbuch der Orientalistik (Kammenhuber didn't posit a Hittite-like substratum language in western Europe; indeed, she rejected the "Indo-Hittite" hypothesis and placed Anatolian near the western languages in the IE family tree). I don't have the book here now, but I have filed a loan request at the local university library and will get it in my hands tomorrow.

The book (Handbuch der Orientalistik 1,2,1/2, 2, 3; from 1963) has turned out to be disappointing. Kammenhuber begins with the history and (then) current state of Hittitology, wherein she polemizes not only against "Indo-Hittite", but also against laryngeal theory (which she grotesquely misrepresents: she gives a reconstructed ablaut series as "*eə₁ ~ *eə₃ ~ *ə" - which nobody ever reconstructed!). In the chapter about the position of Anatolian within IE, she groups it with Latin, Oscan-Umbrian (she doesn't accept Italic as a grouping) and Tocharian in a "western IE group", with Celtic being close to that but not really belonging to it - a view that is now long past its sell-by date.

WeepingElf wrote: ↑Fri Jan 14, 2022 1:01 pm

WeepingElf wrote: ↑Thu Jan 13, 2022 1:19 pm I am still researching these matters, but I think Annelies Kammenhuber wrote about these matters in her Hittite grammar in the Handbuch der Orientalistik (Kammenhuber didn't posit a Hittite-like substratum language in western Europe; indeed, she rejected the "Indo-Hittite" hypothesis and placed Anatolian near the western languages in the IE family tree). I don't have the book here now, but I have filed a loan request at the local university library and will get it in my hands tomorrow.

The book (Handbuch der Orientalistik 1,2,1/2, 2, 3; from 1963) has turned out to be disappointing. Kammenhuber begins with the history and (then) current state of Hittitology, wherein she polemizes not only against "Indo-Hittite", but also against laryngeal theory (which she grotesquely misrepresents: she gives a reconstructed ablaut series as "*eə₁ ~ *eə₃ ~ *ə" - which nobody ever reconstructed!). In the chapter about the position of Anatolian within IE, she groups it with Latin, Oscan-Umbrian (she doesn't accept Italic as a grouping) and Tocharian in a "western IE group", with Celtic being close to that but not really belonging to it - a view that is now long past its sell-by date.

I would not give someone who supposedly knew a bit about PIE phonology yet who disagreed with the laryngeal theory the time of the day at this point...

Travis B. wrote: ↑Fri Jan 14, 2022 2:55 pm I would not give someone who supposedly knew a bit about PIE phonology yet who disagreed with the laryngeal theory the time of the day at this point...

Indeed not. That book is, after all, almost sixty years old and accordingly obsolete. It is virtually worthless, as the grammar is out of date and the conclusions from it on the position of the language in the IE family are just plain wrong. The library will get it back on Monday!