Re: peri-IE (was: Kentum/satem)

> Date:         Fri, 3 May 2002 06:41:28 +0100
> From: Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...>
>
> According to theorists Proto-Anatolian is a sister language to
> Proto-IE, thus:
> [...]
> In otherwords, they are saying that the IEoid langs of ancient Asia
> Minor cannot be derived directly from same ancestral languages as
> the 'main stream' IE langs because the differences are too great.
You need to qualify that. Some theorists, like Beekes, do see Hittite
as part of IE --- the earliest to branch off, true, but firmly based
in PIE, with features like the lack of the feminine being the result
of wideranging simplification after the branch.

(AFAIR, there's too little material on Luwian or Palaic to reconstruct
their morphology separately from Hittite, so it's hard to say if this
simplification if common to the whole group).

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn@...> (Humour NOT marked)