MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR THE
SCIENCE OF HUMAN HISTORY, JENA
THE PRECURSORS OF PROTO-INDO-EUROPEAN:
THE INDO-HITTITE AND INDO-URALIC HYPOTHESES
BOOK OF ABSTRACTS
Leiden University, 9-11 July 2015
This workshop is financially supported by:
Leiden University Centre for Linguistics
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena
Stichting VIET
Research project ‘Splitting the Mother Tongue: The Position of Anatolian in
the Dispersal of the Indo-European Language Family’ (funded by NWO)
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Gilles AUTHIER (Paris)
Reconstructible typological features of Proto-East Caucasian
The forty-or-so East Caucasian languages, distributed across at least eight
different branches, share enough common basic vocabulary, grammatical
morphemes, structural features and irregular morphology to make possible
the reconstruction of many aspects of a proto-language, which was probably
related to Proto-North-West Caucasian. A massive typological drift in the
latter, which has become polysynthetic, head-marking, and morphologically
regular and homogeneous, has obscured its genetic links with East Caucasian
and the probability of their relatedness is based almost only on lexical
evidence.
On the other hand, Proto-East Caucasian and Proto-Indo-European (or ProtoIndo-Hittite) are clearly not related – their basic vocabulary show almost no
coincidences –, but both proto-languages are believed to have been spoken
directly to the north or south of the Caucasus, at a time in which exchanges,
including across the Caucasus, involving advances in agriculture and
metallurgy, were exploding. It is thus not unlegitimate to investigate the
question of contact and mutual influence.
If only a couple of isolated, non-basic lexical items can be shown to be shared
between both proto-languages, and no structural features at all, they were
probably spoken far apart, and that would be a strong argument to place the
homeland in which Proto-Indo-European developped it characteristic
features farther north, or west, or east. But if some relevant typological
features are in fact shared between Proto-Indo-European and Proto-East
Caucasian (and they have to be typologically rare or ‘recessive’ enough to
preclude mere chance and be counted as evidence of contact) then some sort
of contact zone or linguistic area can be assumed, and it will (then) make
sense to look for additional lexicon possibly shared by both families.
We will show that the most salient features of Proto-East Caucasian (few
vowells, a rich consonant inventory including ejective and labialized stops as
well as a series of « intensives », a full-fledged gender system, ergative case
marking (but no single marker is reconstructible and one of the origins of
ergative case markers may have been in the gender-marking system),
agreement of genitives and adjectives with their head, verbal aspect marked
by root reduplication and introflexion, as well as apophony in nominal
inflexion) are indeed, as a whole, significant enough, in particular because
they do not show up in the Uralic family, and are in fact rare crosslinguistically, to substantiate a scenario of extended, maybe intensive contact
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between Proto-Indo-European and East Caucasian. The apparent lack of
shared basic vocabulary, explainable by time-depth, identity-preserving
cultural factors like endogamy, will be briefly reassessed.
Stefan BAUHAUS (Berlin)
PIE *-r as a locative case marker
The purpose of this lecture is to reconstruct a PIE morpheme *-r as a locative
case marker. This element is shown to appear in a lot of different kinds of
adverbs throughout the IE languages, most prominently in the interrogative
locative pronoun *kwor “where”, which is reflected in Lat. cūr < quōr , Ved.
kar-hi and ultimately Goth. ƕar and Du. waar. Although already described by
Brugmann, and others, it has so far attracted little attention among IE
scholars.
My attempt is to consider its very origin and position within the realm of IE
particles. Where else does it appear besides locative adverbs? What about its
productivity as a morpheme? I assume a paradigmatic opposition between
locative *-r and directive *-o at an early stage of PIE, the latter being
conserved in Hittite.
Furthermore, with regard to the IU topic of this symposium, its reflexes of an
even older IU morpheme are to be detected. In this I follow Kortlandt (2001),
who himself quotes Greenberg (2000). Kortlandt takes into account an
element *-ru in IU, which in my view is a possible predecessor of PIE -*r and
which according to Greenberg (2000) can be found in other language families
such as Altaic as well.
Greenberg, Joseph H. (2000): Indo-European and its closest relatives: The Eurasiatic
language family. Stanford UP.
Kortlandt, Frederik (2001): “The Indo-Uralic verb”.
http://www.kortlandt.nl/publications/art203e.pdf
Harald BICHLMEIER (Erlangen)
On the history of the question of the existence of a
Pre-Indo-European subtratum in Germanic
In the course of research on every (Old-)IE language it became clear soon that
besides the larger parts of the lexicon inherited from PIE we also find certain
parts of the lexicon that cannot be explained as inherited. These parts of the
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lexicon are usually to be explained as loans, either from another IE language
or from a Non-IE language.
These ‘foreign’ lexical items usually denote things, situations or institutions
(in the widest sense) for which (at least at the beginning) no words exist in
one’s own language. Usually these words are taken over together with the
things, institutions etc. they denote. Generally it is assumed that on average
some 2% – 4% of a language’s lexicon are of subtratum origin.
In the history of research done on the Germanic languages it was postulated
quite early that in this language group we find a rather big portion of the
lexicon, which is not of IE descent. Into this class mainly belong words
concerning seafaring, fauna and flora, but also from other semantic areas.
These words show up primarily in the North-Sea-Germanic languages, i.e. the
languages of those Germanic peoples who had to do most with the open sea,
seafaring etc. The portion of lexicon of Non-IE descent in (Proto-)Germanic
was from the beginning (around 1900) said to hover at about 30-33%,
although for decades no lists of such words were published that would
contain more than 40, 50 presumed subtratum-words.
As can be shown, the high number of presumed subtratum-words is the
product of a wrong, i.e. methodologically faulty interpretation of some in
themselves correct statistics. The 30% + X then became a common feature in
introductions to and handbooks on the history of the Germanic languages,
which was hardly ever questioned.
Besides this mainly German tradition of research, which actually came to an
end in the 1990ies, when for almost all of those 40-50 presumed subtratumwords IE etymologies had been proposed, two new lines of research came up,
which will be shortly commented on: One is the Vennemann way of research,
which is based mainly on unproven claims about prehistoric movements of
peoples and thus languages, proposing that Germanic came into being as an
IE supertratum on a Vasconic subtratum that was then influenced by an
Atlantic/Semitidic supertratum.
The other more promising way of research came up mainly among scholars
from Leiden: They are primarily looking into the structure of words (e.g.
synonymous pairs of nasalized vs. not-nasalized roots, where the nasalized
forms show the nasal at the ‘wrong’ place etc.), claiming that nonconformity
with the rules of PIE word- or root-structure points to substratum origin of a
certain form.
The opposite approach can be found in the Althochdeutsches etymologisches
Wörterbuch, where such forms are usually explained by analogic processes
etc.
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Václav BLAŽEK (Brno)
Indo-European dendronyms in perspective of external comparison
Tree-names represent an important source of information to application of
linguistic archaeology. Their etymological analysis in wider perspective of
neighboring dendronymical systems offer extraordinarily valuable results
usable to confirm or exclude the internal influence of substratal languages,
external influence of adstratal languages or the role of hypothetical distantly
related languages, leading to determination of homeland of the given
language entity. The following examples may illustrate various scenarios: A.
Substratum; B. Borrowing: non-IE > IE; C. Borrowing: IE branch > non-IE; D.
Common heritage. Finally, the problematic examples are discussed in the
section E.
A. Substratum
IE forms are derivable with difficulties from the only protoform, which has
been more or less deviant from the standard pattern. There are similar
parallels in neighboring non-IE languages which could be related to the
hypothetical substratum preceding the IE protolanguage or its branch in
some territory.
1. IE *H2er- “nut” (Greek, Albanian, Balto-Slavic; Hittite (GIŠ)harau n.
“poplar / Populus euphratica” probably stands aside). The forms agree in
the root and semantics, the suffixal extensions are more or less different.
The identified cognates are limited only to Europe. It is tempting to
compare it with the common Basque-North Caucasian designation of “nut”
of various trees:
Proto-Basque *hur̄ “hazelnut” (Bengtson) ||| Proto-North Caucasian
*ʔwǟrƛ̣ _V ( ~ -ō-, -Ł-) “nut, walnut” (NCED 229).
B. Borrowing: non-IE > IE
IE forms are derivable with difficulties from the only protoform, which has
been more or less deviant from the standard IE pattern. There are similar
parallels in neighboring non-IE languages which cannot be the substratum
with respect to known historical & geographical facts, but may represent the
donor-languages with regard to their geographical position and cultural role.
2. IE *Haeblu- “apple” versus Semitic *ʔabul- or *ʔubal- ‘various kinds of
fruits and cultural trees or plants’. The semantic difference has analogy
e.g. in Akkadian šerkum “a string of (dried) fruit, normally figs, less often
apples” (Markey 1988, 54).
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3. IE *H3/2u̯ r̥ b- “willow” versus Semitic *γurab- “willow” (Militarev 1984,
16: Semitic + Egyptian) || Egyptian (Pyramid Texts) ʕɜb “a kind of a tree”
(Wb. I, 167).
4. IE *Hxīl̄̆ - “holm-oak, ilex” versus Semitic *ʔaly-(ān-) “oak”; Canaanite >
Egyptian (New) i̓nrn “oak” (Wb. I, 98) || Egyptian (Middle Kingdom) i̓ɜɜ “a
nut-plant”, (late) i̓ɜ.t id., (Book of Died) i̓ɜ.t “a tree” (Wb. I, 17).
C. Borrowing: IE branch > non-IE
The non-Indo-European dendronyms resemble the tree-names reconstructible in partial proto-languages of individual IE branches which
themselves are derivable from the IE protolanguage. In this case it is
probable to seek the sources of borrowing just in these partial
protolanguages, naturally with respect to the geographical and historical
circumstances.
5. IE *dóru-/*dreu̯ - “wood, tree” > Indo-Iranian *dā ̄́ ru- id. > East Caucasian
*daro “tree; conifer” (NCED 399).
6. IE *bherH1ĝ-/* bhr̥ H1ĝ- “birch” > Indo-Iranian: Vedic bhūrjá- “birch” |
Nuristani: Waigali brūǰ id. | Iranian *barz- id. (Khotanese bruṃja-, Ossetic
bærz / bærzæ) > (1) East Caucasian *burVźV “a kind of foliage tree” (NCED
313); (2) Proto-Permic *beriʒ̄́ - “linden” (Joki 1973, #20).
On the other hand, Basque *burki “birch” (Löpelmann 1968, 239; Trask
2008, 359), is probably borrowed from an unattested, but possible, Gothic
*burki or *burkja < *bhr̥ H1ĝi̯ā-, the zero-grade apophonic counterpart to
Northwest Germanic *berkjō(n)- > Old English birce, Old High German
bircha, birihha (Kroonen 2013, 61).
D. Common heritage
The dendronyms reconstructible for the IE and some non-IE proto-languages
are compatible in both phonetics and semantics and borrowing of one from
another is excluded for geographical reasons. In this case a common,
Nostratic, heritage seems most probable.
7. IE *toko- “willow, branch”, *tokso- “yew, bow” ||| Turkic: Chaghatai taq
“name for a tree which burns for a long time” || Tungusic *taktï- “cedar,
yew” || Middle Korean tàk ‘paper mulberry / Broussonetia papyrifera’ ||
Old Japanese tuki ‘a tree of genus Zelkova’ ||| Kartvelian *ṭq̇ e- “forest”.
E. Problematic cases with attempts to find new solutions
8. IE *bheHago- “beech/oak/chestnut/?hornbeam” versus Semitic *bak-ay“pistachio” || Egyptian bkj “terebinthe; big fruit” || Berber *bak-āH
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“jujubier” || Chadic *bak-aw- “fig-sycamore” ||| Dravidian *pākk-u “areca
nut” or *pakk-ay “Tamarix indica”.
9. Turkic *ab(ï)s(-ak) “aspen” or “poplar” < ?West Iranian.
10. Uralic *ośka “ash-tree” < ?Indo-Iranian.
11. Fenno-Ugric *śala (UEW 458-59; FUV 125) / *śi̮liw (Sammalahti) “elm”
versus IE *selH-/*solH-/*sl̥H- + *-ik- “willow”.
Allan BOMHARD (Charleston)
The Origins of Proto-Indo-European: The Caucasian Substrate
Hypothesis
There have been numerous attempts to find relatives of Proto-IndoEuropean, not the least of which is the Indo-Uralic Hypothesis. According to
this hypothesis, Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Uralic are alleged to descend
from a common ancestor. However, attempts to prove this hypothesis have
run into numerous difficulties. One difficulty concerns the inability to
reconstruct the ancestral morphological system in detail, and another
concerns the rather small shared vocabulary. This latter problem is further
complicated by the fact that many scholars think in terms of borrowing
rather than inheritance. Moreover, the lack of agreement in vocabulary
affects the ability to establish viable sound correspondences and rules of
combinability. This paper will attempt to show that these and other
difficulties are caused, at least in large part, by the question of the origins of
the Indo-European parent language. Evidence will be presented to
demonstrate that Proto-Indo-European is the result of the imposition of a
Eurasiatic language — to use Greenberg’s term — on a population speaking
one or more primordial Northwest Caucasian languages.
Gerd CARLING (Lund)
Testing the Indo-Hittite-(Tocharian) hypothesis against various types of
data sets: sound change, basic vocabulary, cultural vocabulary, and
grammatical typology
Since the publication of the paper on computational cladistics by Ringe et al
(2002), there has been a rich literature on the classification of Indo-European
using computational methods. In general, the aims have been either to study
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how computational models relate to traditional models when it comes to subbranching of Indo-European (Ringe et al 2002, Grey & Atkinson 2003),
estimations of time-depths (see Chang et al to appear), or even the location of
the Proto-Indo-European homeland (Bouckaert et al 2012). An important
feature of computational studies (Ringe et al 2002, Grey & Atkinson 2003)
has been that most analyses apparently support the Indo-Hittite hypothesis,
with Anatolian first and Tocharian as the second to branch of in the
phylogenetic trees. However, most of these studies (except for Ringe et al
2002) have been based on a specific type of data set: basic vocabulary, more
precisely a Swadesh 100 or 200-list.
In the presentation, we will, using computational models, contrast four
different types of data sets against each other. The purpose is to test the
validity of the Indo-Hittite-(Tocharian) hypothesis. These data sets are:
1. a data set with basic vocabulary (Swadesh 100-lists)
2. a data set with cultural vocabulary, focusing on Indo-European
inherited/reconstructed cultural artifacts with low borrowability
3. a data set of critical innovations in sound change
4. a data set with grammatical typology data.
On these data sets, we will perform multivariate analyses, creating principal
component analysis scatterplots, as well as a hierarchical Bayesian inference
of phylogenetic trees, which uses the Markov Chain Monte Carlo method for
estimating the posterior distribution of model parameters (a very frequent
method used in computational cladistics).
Preliminary results indicate that the data sets behave differently, not so much
when it comes to subgrouping, as to the specific position of Anatolian and
Tocharian.
The usage of various computational methods and models, as well as the
important issue of how various data types and various coding practices might
change the outcome of analyses, will be in focus in the presentation.
Bouckaert, Remco, Philippe Lemey, Michael Dunn, Simon J. Greenhill , Alexander V.
Alekseyenko, Alexei J. Drummond , Russell D. Gray, Marc A. Suchard, Quentin D.
Atkinson 2012. Mapping the Origins and Expansion of the Indo-European Language
Family. Science 337, 957-960.
Gerd Carling, Sandra Cronhamn, Niklas Johansson, Joost van de Weijer submitted.
Quantifying sound change for language classification: a case study on the IndoEuropean and Tupí language families. Submitted to Laboratory Phonology.
Chang, Will, Hall, David, Cathcart, Chundra & Garrett, Andrew to appear. Ancestryconstrained phylogenetic analysis supports the Indo-European steppe hypothesis. To
appear in Language.
Gray, R. D. & Atkinson, Q. D. 2003. Language-tree divergence times support the Anatolian
theory of Indo-European origin. Nature, 426, 435-439.
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Ringe, D., Warnow, T. & Taylor, A. 2002. Indo-European and computational
cladistics. Transactions of the Philological Society 100, 59−129.
Dag HAUG (Oslo) & Andrej SIDELTSEV (Moscow)
Indo-Hittite Syntax?
A well-known feature of Hittite is the use of relative/interrogative pronouns
en lieu of indefinite pronouns in conditional clauses and, more seldom, after
negation marker:
MH/MS KUB 14.1+ rev. 45
nu=wa=mu mān idālu-n memia-n kui-š [mema-i]
“If anybody tells me a bad word”.
The use looks identical to that of other Indo-European languages:
Greek ἐάν τις περιπατῇ ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ “If anyone walks in the daytime,…”
(John 11.9).
Avestan kat̰ mōi uruuā isē cahiiā auuaŋhō (Yasna 50.1) “Does my soul
command any help?”
Latin si quis “if anyone”
Gothic ni manna in analaugnein ƕa taujit (John 7.4).
It is attested in all the ancient languages of all the branches1 and is
reconstructed for narrow PIE as the use of relative/interrogative pronouns as
indefinite pronouns under specific licensing conditions.
However, Hittite attests this usage in post-OH period2. The oldest attested
Hittite texts3 have only indefinite pronouns in conditional clauses and after
negation markers.4 All the rest of Anatolian languages with relevant data
(Luwian, Lycian) pattern with OH/OS usage.5
1
Save Armenian and Tocharian.
(CHD L-N: 160).
3
OH/OS originals.
4
My count of OH/OS corpus revealed 62x mān kuiški/kuitki vs 0x *mān kuiš/kuit. The latter only
occurs in MS and NS texts and are likely to reflect MH/NH usage. As for negative pronouns, natta/UL
kuiš appears only once in the NH copy of the edict of Telipinu versus OH/OS natta/UL kuiški. The
statistics is impressive enough to be just a matter of coincidence.
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I.e. they attest indefinite pronouns and not relative/interrogative ones in conditional clauses and
after negation markers (Melchert 1993; Melchert 2003; Melchert 2004). The only potentially
deviating case is Lycian tihe, formally genitive of the relative ti- (Melchert 2004: 66). In some contexts
it is employed with indefinite tike and thus is interpreted as relative/interrogative functioning as
indefinite (ibid).
2
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In this light the post-OH use of relatives/interrogatives in conditional clauses
and after negation marker in Hittite cannot be directly equated with the
usage in narrow IE languages. Thus narrow IE attests relative/interrogative
pronouns in conditional clauses and after negation whereas Proto-Anatolian
attests only indefinite pronouns in these contexts. Relative/interrogative
pronouns en lieu of indefinite pronouns have to be an independent
innovation in historical Hittite and in narrow IE and may constitute another
feature in favor of the Indo-Hittite hypothesis.
Even if one adhers to the unlikely idea that Hittite usage directly goes back to
the IE one, the Hittite use of interrogatives/relatives is restricted to contexts
after mān6 as different from much wider narrow IE one. So the development
from Proto-Indo-European to Hittite would be narrowing of the sphere of
usage of original interrogatives/relatives. This would contradict
Haspelmath’s (1997) generalization that interrogatives/relatives become
more general in use over time as indefinite pronouns and not vice versa.
Haspelmath, M. 1997, Indefinite Pronouns. Clarendon Press: Oxford.
Hoffner, H. A. Jr. and Melchert, C. 2008, A Grammar of the Hittite Language, Part 1, Winona
Lake, Indiana.
Melchert, H. Craig 1993, Cuneiform Luvian Lexicon, Chapel Hill, 1993.
Melchert, H. Craig 2003, Language, in: C.Melchert (ed.), The Luwians, HdO 68, 170-210.
Melchert, H. Craig 2004, A Dictionary of the Lycian Language. Ann Arbor/New York, 2004.
Paul HEGGARTY (Leipzig)
The Indo-Hittite and Indo-Uralic questions: Perspectives from
archaeology, genetics, and Bayesian phylogenetics
More than two centuries of research on Indo-European have rarely seen such
rapid strides forward as in the last few years. A series of high-profile papers
have brought the Indo-European question, and in its train the more specific
Indo-Hittite and Indo-Uralic hypotheses, onto the pages of leading journals
not only in linguistics (Chang et al. 2015 in Language), but also in the natural
sciences (Bouckaert et al. 2012 in Science; Haak et al. 2015 in Nature). These
papers reflect the changes sweeping through the respective disciplines: new
Bayesian phylogenetic analyses of comparative data in linguistics; the ancient
DNA and genomic revolutions in genetics; and rapid advances in
archaeological science, not least isotope provenience analysis.
Results from these recent papers often contradict each other, however, or are
open to very contrasting interpretations. Here I try to set all three questions
6
They are only sporadically attested after negations and virtually unattested in other contexts.
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— Indo-European origins, Indo-Hittite and Indo-Uralic — into their most
plausible contexts in this fast-evolving picture of Eurasian prehistory:
demography, population movements, contact, societal complexity,
subsistence regimes, etc.. In particular, to what extent are the Steppe
pastoralism or Anatolian farming hypotheses for Indo-European origins
either compatible with, or excluded by, the Indo-Hittite and Indo-Uralic
hypotheses (if confirmed)?
I assess the relative merits and weaknesses of Bouckaert et al. (2012) and
Chang et al. (2015). Finally, I update them with a report on newer analyses by
the first of those research groups, which bear directly on the ‘Indo-Hittite’
question, and also test a new methodological approach to the putative IndoUralic relationship.
Bouckaert, R., Lemey, P., Dunn, M., Greenhill, S.J., Alekseyenko, A.V., Drummond, A.J., Gray,
R.D., Suchard, M.A. & Atkinson, Q.D. 2012. Mapping the origins and expansion of the
Indo-European
language
family.
Science
337(6097):
p.957–960.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1219669
Chang, W., Cathcart, C., Hall, D. & Garrett, A. 2015. Ancestry-constrained phylogenetic
analysis supports the Indo-European steppe hypothesis. Language 91(1): p.194–244.
www.linguisticsociety.org/files/news/ChangEtAlPreprint.pdf
Haak, W., Lazaridis, I., Patterson, N., Rohland, N., Mallick, S., Llamas, B., Brandt, G.,
Nordenfelt, S., Harney, E., Stewardson, K., Fu, Q., Mittnik, A., Bánffy, E., Economou, C.,
Francken, M., et al. 2015. Massive migration from the steppe was a source for IndoEuropean languages in Europe. Nature advance online publication.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature14317
Adam HYLLESTED (Copenhagen)
Indo-Uralic: opinions, methods, and results
It is probably fair to describe communis opinio among comparative linguists
regarding the Indo-Uralic hypothesis as follows: Most scholars:
a) think that the two families are probably (ultimately) related;
b) base this assumption on a general impression on superficial similarities
in conjugational and inflectional morphology, as well as among the
pronouns;
c) would claim that sufficient evidence for the relationship has not been
found yet;
d) are generally pessimistic that this situation will ever change
dramatically;
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e) have learned that it is too easy to find possible cognates because the PIE
consonant system is much larger than the Proto-Uralic one, multiplying
the risk of chance resemblances;
f) judge that all proposals display typical flaws of long-lange comparisons
(poor source criticism, outdated reconstructions, permitting contradictory
correspondence patterns, ad hoc morphological segmentations, overly
liberal semantic matches etc.), and rarely distinguish between attempts to
reconstruct Indo-Uralic and Nostratic as a whole;
g) prefer to interpret lexical resemblances as old loans.
However, it is also true that most scholars have never investigated the
material systematically themselves, nor do they encourage their students to
do so. The general view is therefore self-supporting, and based mainly on
examples first mentioned in the late 19th century.
Having briefly addressed the most frequent kinds of criticism, I will try to
show how a persistent use of classical methods can prove fruitful. Contrary to
the majority view, I maintain that the best evidence can be found in the
lexicon.
Crucially, one must look not only for superficial similarities (“lookalikes”)
since, in many cases, these may indeed reflect contacts. Between any two
distantly related languages there are non-trivial systematic correspondences
involving lexemes that are not immediately recognized as cognates. Such sets
are admittedly harder to detect, but this is true for any study of language
relationship.
Another important point is that mere correspondences may fail to convince if
the languages in question do not also reveal straightforward and unexpected
solutions to family-internal irregularities which scholars have been unable to
assign diachronic explanations by internal reconstruction alone.
In my paper, I will present non-trivial correspondences between PIE and PU,
as well as a handful of irregularities in each of the protolanguages that can be
explained by yesterday’s Indo-Uralic morphology. With reference to the
overall theme of the workshop, I will focus mainly on such correspondences
that are particularly relevant for Indo-Hittite.
Vyacheslav IVANOV (Los Angeles)
Traces of Indo-Uralic or Nostratic in Anatolian
If one accepts, on the one hand, the Nostratic hypothesis and, on the other
hand, a recent reinterpretation of the Indo-Hittite concept according to which
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Northern Anatolian (Hittite and Palaic) and then Southern Anatolian
(Luwian-Lycian languages) divided from the rest of Indo-European dialects
when the latter had been still unified, a chronological question may be raised.
It is possible to ask whether any trace of Nostratic archaisms may be found in
Anatolian. In the light of the idea of a particular link between those dialects of
Nostratic that have developed into Uralic on the one side and Indo-European
on the other side one might be tempted to search for specific ancient features
that are shared by Northern and Southern Anatolian and Finno-Ugric,
Samoyed and Yukaghir.
On the base of Ugric-Samoyed correspondences found by Khelimsky and the
two rows of the Indo-European verbal forms reflected in two Hittite and
Luwian types of conjugation it has become possible to prove their common
origin. Both for Uralic and for Indo-European an original opposition of two
conjugations (1 Person Singular Uralic *-k-: Indo-European *-H-/ Uralic and
Indo-European *-m-) can be suggested, the first one being subjective/
inactive/intransitive and the second one objective/active/transitive (also
possessive as it is based on suffixation of pronominal elements identical to
roots of personal/possessive pronouns ). Recently a similar trend of thought
in respect to the Indo-Uralic comparison has been followed by Kortland
(2001), although using the Uralic reconstruction by Janhunen and trying to
deduce Indo-European forms directly from a supposed Proto-Uralic set of
morphs he came to partly different concrete results.
The Uralic opposition of a subjective series of forms and an objective one and
the formally comparable difference between Hittite -hi - and -mi conjugations
go back to the original Proto-Indo-Uralic (and earler Nostratic) binary
distinction of similar rows of verbs. To compare to Uralic forms in -k(a)
particularly important are the Southern Anatolian Past formations with the
ending of the 1 Person Singular like Luwian -ha different from the
analogically transformed Northern Anatolian Hittite -h(h)-un; as it was
supposed already by Sapir and Sturtevant, a similar explanation might be
given to the forms of the Past and/or Perfect in the other Indo-European
dialects like Tocharian and Greek. But only in Anatolian (as well as in Uralic)
a binary opposition has been preserved.
Petri KALLIO (Helsinki)
Internal and external evidence for the Pre-PIE
conditioned sound change *t > *s
The idea of the Pre-PIE conditioned sound change *t > *s was first advocated
by Bojan Čop (1970–1989), but it has barely been mentioned since apart
14
from the recent discussion by Frederik Kortlandt (2002). In any case, this
sound change can be supported by both internal reconstruction and external
comparative evidence. As is well-known, personal endings typically go back
to personal pronouns, and while this works perfectly well as far as the PIE
1sg is concerned, the PIE 2sg is another story (Beekes & De Vaan 2011):
1sg.
2sg.
Personal pronouns:
*h1me (acc.)
*tuH
Possessive pronouns: Personal endings:
*h1mos
*-m(i)
*tuos
*-s(i)
Hence, this fact serves as an internal evidence for the idea that Pre-PIE *t had
been shifted to *s at least under some circumstances. Incidentally, the
corresponding Proto-Uralic recontructions are as follows (Janhunen 1982,
Honti 2012):
1sg.
2sg.
Personal pronouns:
*min
*tin
Possessive pronouns: Personal endings:
*-mə
*-m
*-tə
*-t
Therefore, Pre-PIE *t > *s can have even further support from comparative
Indo-Uralic studies. My paper will be an update to this discussion.
Beekes, R. S. P. & De Vaan, M. 2011: Comparative Indo-European Linguistics: An
Introduction². Amsterdam/Philadelphia.
Čop, B. 1970: Die indouralische Sprachverwandtschaft und die indogermanische
Laryngaltheorie. Slovenska akademija znanosti in umetnosti 7.
— 1989: Indouralica IX. Linguistica 29.
Honti, L. 2012: Das Zeitalter und die Entstehung der Personalpronomina mit velaren
Vokalen. Per Urales ad Orientem: Iter polyphonicum multilingue [= Mémoires de la
Société Finno-Ougrienne 264]. Helsinki.
Janhunen, J. 1982: On the Structure of Proto-Uralic. Finnisch-Ugrische Forschungen 44.
Kortlandt, F. 2002: The Indo-Uralic Verb. Finno-Ugrians and Indo-Europeans: Linguistic
and Literary Contacts [= Studia Fenno-Ugrica Groningana 2]. Maastricht.
Simona KLEMENČIČ (Ljubljana)
Bojan Čop’s Indo-Uralic hypothesis and its plausibility
In his series Indouralica, as well as in some of his other works, Bojan Čop
(1923–1994) presented his view on genetic linguistic relationship between
the Indo-European and Uralic language family. In his extensive work Čop
meticulously built what seems by far most extensive, systematic and thus
convincing approach in favour of the existence of the Indo-Uralic linguistic
community.
15
The goal of this paper is a concise presentation of Čop’s purported IndoUralic phonetic system as well as a critical assessment of his methodological
approach in light of the “cherry-picking” problem and other problems in
long-range linguistic comparison.
Alwin KLOEKHORST (Leiden)
The Indo-Hittite hypothesis: methods and arguments
Shortly after the decipherment of Hittite in 1915, its aberrant character in
comparison to the other Indo-European languages was recognized, which
prompted scholars like Forrer (1921) and Sturtevant (1933) to formulate the
hypothesis that Hittite should not be viewed as a daughter of the Proto-IndoEuropean mother language, but rather as its sister, both deriving from an
even earlier proto-stage, which was coined ‘Indo-Hittite’. For a long time, this
idea was generally viewed as too radical. It was instead assumed that the
aberrant character of Hittite as well as its Anatolian sister languages was due
to a massive loss of categories and to other specific innovations within the
Anatolian branch, which would mean that there is no need to assume a
special status of Anatolian within the Indo-European language family. Yet, in
the last few decades this viewpoint has shifted, and nowadays the majority of
scholars seem to support the hypothesis that Anatolian did split off first from
the mother language, and that the other branches at that point in time still
formed a single language community that underwent some common
innovations that Anatolian did not share (Kloekhorst 2008a: 7-11; Oettinger
2013/2014; Melchert fthc.; but cf. Rieken 2009 for a more cautious view).
This does not mean, however, that there is at the moment any broad
consensus on the number or nature of these common innovations.
In this talk I will discuss the methodological issues that arise when trying to
prove or disprove the Indo-Hittite hypothesis. The focus will be on what
types of arguments from morphology, phonology and semantics can be used.
Forrer, 1921, Ausbeute aus den Boghazköi-Inschriften, Mitteilungen der Deutschen
Orientgesellschaft 61, 20-38.
Kloekhorst, A., 2008, Etymological Dictionary of the Hittite Inherited Lexicon (= Leiden
Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 5), Leiden - Boston.
Melchert, H.C., fthc., The position of Anatolian, to appear in Handbook of Indo-European
Studies (ed. M. Weiss & A. Garrett).
Oettinger, N., 2013/2014, Die Indo-Hittite-Hypothese aus heutiger Sicht, Münchener
Studien zur Sprachwissenschaft 67, 149-176.
Rieken, E., 2009, Der Archaismus des Hethitischen – eine Bestandsaufnahme, Incontri
Linguistici 32, 37–52.
Sturtevant, E.H., 1933, A Comparative Grammar of the Hittite Language, Philadelphia.
16
Frederik KORTLANDT (Leiden)
Indo-European o-grade presents and the Anatolian hi-conjugation
Elsewhere I have argued that the Hittite ḫi-verbs represent a merger of the
original perfect and the original thematic flexion with zero grade in the root,
e.g. Vedic tudáti. If the root vowel of CeC-roots was introduced in this
formation between stages C and E of my chronology (2010: 385, 396), it
automatically became *o, as happened in the singular forms of the perfect.
Thus, we arrive at o-grade in Slavic bosti ‘to stab’ and the Germanic 6th class
verbs versus zero grade in the Vedic 6th class presents. The athematic
reduplicated intensive is evidently a derivative of this formation, e.g. Vedic
jaṅghanti ‘strikes’. In Anatolian, the complementary distribution between oand zero grade was brought into line with the paradigmatic alternation of the
perfect. In Indo-Iranian, the reduplicated intensive similarly adopted the
alternation of the root vowel from the 3rd class reduplicated presents but
preserved the zero grade root vowel of the 6th class presents in the
subjunctive.
Kortlandt, Frederik. 2010. Studies in Germanic, Indo-European and Indo-Uralic
(Amsterdam: Rodopi).
Guus KROONEN (Copenhagen)
Indo-Uralic lookalike sets, an etymological quick scan
Innovations in the reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European have the potential
of shedding new light on the Indo-Uralic hypothesis. Making use of three
recent publications, Frederik Kortlandt’s Indo-Uralic verb (2002), Martin
Kümmel’s article on the nature of the glottalized stops (forthc.), and Alwin
Kloekhorst’s work on Proto-Anatalian phonology (forthc.), I have performed
an etymological quick scan on Rédei’s Uralisches etymologisches Wörterbuch
(1987-91) in order to evaluate the evidence for cognates. Surprisingly or not,
strict application of the Comparative Method does seem to yield what could
be falsifiable results. With my collection of lookalikes or hypothetical cognate
sets, it appeared to be possible to establish or confirm a number of
potentially regular sound correspondences, cf. PIE *ɗ, *ʄ, *ɠ, *ɠʷ = PU *n, *ŋi,
*ŋ, *uŋ; PIE *h₁, *h₂ = PU *ke/æ, *ka; PIE *p, *t, *k = PU *pp, *tt, *kk, and find
support for the reconstruction of a couple of dozen Proto-Indo-Uralic roots,
e.g. *ɗæki ‘see’ (*deḱ- = *näki), *ɗaje ‘sun, day, sky’ (*dei- = *naje), *ikæ ‘year,
17
age’ (*ieh₁- = *ikä), *jæɠi ‘ice’ (*ie⁽ģ⁾- = *jäŋi), *kaja ‘sun, dawn, morning’
(*h₂ei- = *kaja), *kawi ‘hear, perceive’ (*h₂eu- = *kawi), *paɗe ‘put down’
(*ped- = *pane), *raɠi ‘flow, river’ (*?(H)reģ- = *raŋi), *śeppæ ‘understand’
(*sep- = *śeppä), *uɠa ‘moist’ (*uegʷ- = *uŋa), *wettæ ‘throw, hit’ (*uet- =
*wettä). However, the material on which the results are based remains
scarce, and many of the cognate sets are conspicuously found in the semantic
periphery rather than the central parts of the Indo-European and Uralic
vocabularies. These statistically bad omina add to the possibility that many if
not all of the lexical matches in fact are loanwords (cf. Koivulehto, 1994), and
do not bode well for Indo-Uralic as a falsifiable hypothesis.
Collinder, B., 1934. Indo-uralisches Sprachgut. Uppsala.
Collinder, B., 1954. Zur indo-uralischen Frage. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis 10, pp. 79-91.
Kloekhorst, A., forthc. The Anatolian stop system and the Indo-Hittite hypothesis.
Indogermanische Forschungen.
Koivulehto, J., 1994. Indogermanisch – Uralisch: Lehnbeziehungen oder (auch)
Urverwandtschaft?. In: R. Sternemann, ed. Bopp-Symposium 1992 der HumboldtUniversität zu Berlin. Akten der Konferenz vom 24.3.–26.3.1992 aus Anlaß von Franz
Bopps zweihundertjährigem Geburtstag am 14.9.1991. Heidelberg, p. 133–148.
Kortlandt, F., 2002. The Indo-Uralic Verb. In: R. Blokland & C. Hasselblatt, eds. FinnoUgrians and Indo-Europeans: Linguistic and Literary Contacts: Proceedings of the
Symposium at the University of Groningen, November 22–24, 2001. Maastricht, p. 217–
227.
Kümmel, M., forthc. The Distribution of roots ending in IE *nd.
Rédei, K., 1987-91. Uralisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. Wiesbaden.
Martin KÜMMEL (Jena)
Thoughts about Pre-Indo-European stop systems
In a conference paper (Opava 2014), Alwin Kloekhorst has argued for an
“Indo-Hittite” model on the basis of changes in the stop system: Starting from
a Proto-Anatolian (PA) stop system *tt : t : tˀ (cf. Kloekhorst 2008) and a
reconstruction of (core) PIE as something like *t : d/dʱ : ˀd/d he proposed to
reconstruct the PA system for Proto-Indo-Hittite (PIH) and assume a sound
shift *tt : t > *t : d for PIE. However, unconditioned sonorization of stops is
not a common sound change, and even if we reconstruct PA like that, there is
a good alternative to this reconstruction, namely to start from a core PIE
system *t : d (: ɗ) and assume the opposite sound shift *t : d > *tt : t for
Anatolian (cf. Kümmel 2007: 140, 176, 183, 350). I will argue that this kind of
shift is not less or even more probable diachronically. Such a more or less
glottalic reconstruction of the PIH/PIE stops is also a good basis for
18
explaining the rise of breathy voice in large parts of IE, as will be exemplified
by parallels from South East Asian languages (cf. Kümmel 2014).
A related but different problem arises, if we want to compare IE with Uralic:
While PIE (or PIH) had three different stop series, Proto-Uralic (PU) had only
one. The possible correspondence of one type to three increases the danger
of finding accidental similarities and therefore weakens the possibilities to
prove a genetic relation. However, the reconstruction of implosives PIE opens
the possibility that one of the three series might have a different
correspondence in Uralic: Since implosives tend to change to sonorants, we
may consider that IE implosives correspond to PU sonorants. Interestingly,
Proto-Uralic had a much richer system of nasals than PIE, exhibiting *m : n : ń
: ŋ. Starting from suggestive examples like PU *jäŋi ‘ice’ = PIE/PIH *jéɠo-,
*jeɠi- ‘ice’, I will investigate whether there are more possible examples of
such correspondences of IE stops to PU sonorants, and what this could mean
for the hypothesis of a common Indo-Uralic protolanguage.
Kloekhorst, Alwin. 2008. Etymological Dictionary of the Hittite Inherited Lexicon. Leiden /
Boston: Brill.
Kümmel, Martin Joachim. 2007. Konsonantenwandel: Bausteine zu einer Typologie des
Lautwandels und ihre Konsequenzen für die vergleichende Rekonstruktion. Wiesbaden:
Reichert.
‒. 2014. The role of typology in historical phonology. In: Patrick Honeybone, Joseph C.
Salmons (eds.), The handbook of historical phonology, Oxford: Oxford University Press
2014 [Online edition].
Milan LOPUHAÄ (Leiden/Nijmegen)
Prehistory of the Anatolian ‘ergative’
If one wishes to prove that Anatolian is the first language to split off from
Proto-Indo-European, one way to set out is to find linguistic features that are
shared by all branches of Indo-European except for Anatolian. If it can be
proven that the exceptional Anatolian situation is in fact archaic, this shows
that the other Indo-European branches share a common innovation, which
constitutes proof for the Indo-Hittite hypothesis.
One morphological feature of Anatolian that is strikingly different from the
rest of Indo-European is the treatment of neuter nouns as the subject of
transitive sentences (the agent position). Whereas in most Indo-European
languages neuter agents have the regular nominative-accusative form, in
Anatolian neuter nouns in this position receive a suffix, e.g. Hittite sg. -anza,
pl. -anteš. These suffixes have traditionally been given the term ‘ergative’
(Laroche 1962), but there is an ongoing discussion about how this
19
construction should be interpreted synchronically (Melchert 2011). I
therefore adopt the more neutral term ‘agentive’. The discussion of the role of
the agentive construction within the grammar of Anatolian has mostly
focused on synchronic Hittite. More recently Goedegebuure (2013) has
demonstrated that the ending -anza was originally an inflectional suffix that
fossilised into a case ending in Neo-Hittite.
In this talk I will discuss the role of the agentive construction in the other
languages in which it has been attested, namely Hieroglyphic Luwian,
Cuneiform Luwian and Lycian. Using these data we can reconstruct the
agentive and its grammatical role in Proto-Anatolian. Finally, we can compare
this with the other Indo-European languages to see what the PIE situation
was, so that we can ascertain whether the other Indo-European languages
shared a common innovation. This allows us to decide whether the Anatolian
agentive constitutes an argument in favour of the Indo-Hittite hypothesis or
not.
Goedegebuure, P., 2013. Split-ergativity in Hittite. Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und
vorderasiatische Archäologie, 102:270–303.
Laroche, E., 1962. Un ‘ergatif’ en indo-européen d’Asie Mineure. Bulletin de la Societé de
Linguistique de Paris, 57:23–43.
Melchert, H.C., 2011. The problem of the ergative case in Hittite. In Michèle Fruyt, Michel
Mazoyer, and Dennis Pardee, editors, Grammatical Case in the Languages of the Middle
East and Europe, page 161–167, Chicago, IL, The Oriental Institute.
Alexander LUBOTSKY (Leiden)
The Indo-European suffix *-ens- and its Indo-Uralic origin
In my talk, I shall first discuss the evidence for the Proto-Indo-European
suffix *-ens-, since this suffix is not listed in the major handbooks and is but
rarely reconstructed, except maybe for the word for ‘moon’ (*meh1-ns-). In a
series of articles (1978, 1985, 2013), F. Kortlandt has argued for the same
suffix in the word for ‘goose’ (*ǵhh2-ens-), to which I would now like to add
*gwhr-ens- ‘heat’, *dh1-ens- ‘dense, strong’, *trh2-(e)ns ‘across’. Furthermore,
the same suffix is to be recognized in the verbal roots *dhu(h2)-ens- ‘to
pulverize’, *ḱh1-ens- ‘to recite, declare’, *dh1-ens- ‘to teach, make capable’ and
IIr. *sr-ans- ‘to fall down, slip off’, all of which are then likely to be of
denominal origin.
The suffix *-ens- has the same meaning as the IE active participle *-ent-, or,
rather, as Hitt. -ant-, i.e. active when derived from intransitive verbs and
passive when derived from transitive verbs. It is therefore very likely that
the two suffixes, *-ens- and *-ent-, once belonged to one and the same
20
paradigm, with an alternation s/t that we also find in the suffix of the IE
perfect participle *-uos-/-uot-.
The IE suffix *-ens-/-ent - might be identified with the Uralic formant *nt for
deverbative verbs, which “usually implies a continuative mood of action or a
non-perfective aspect” (Collinder 1960: 277).
Rosemarie LÜHR (Jena)
Headedness in Indo-Uralic
In substantiating the claim of the relationship between Indo-European and
Uralic the literature offers some significant common elements of morphology,
i.e. pronominal roots, case markings, personal pronouns, the phonological
and lexical evidence seems less convincing. A linguistic domain which has not
been analyzed sufficiently is syntax. That is surprising as a special word
order, namely SOV, is assumed both for Uralic and for Indo-European.
Furthermore, SOV belongs not only to the linguistic universals but also to the
assumed implicational type, in so far as with overwhelmingly greater-thanchance frequency, languages with normal SOV order are postpositional. Also
a modifier-before-headword word order is connected to the SOV type,
whereby the underlying concept of all of these relations is headedness. This
paper primarily aims to make a comparison on the phrases which show the
different kinds of headedness in the oldest Indo-European languages Hittite
and Vedic and Old Hungarian, the earliest Uralic language documented in
writing. Besides the head-final type also the head-initial type and especially
the mixed-headed type has to be discussed, for mixed directionality appears
in Indo-European and Uralic languages, too. For example, though Hittite is
regarded as a representative of the head-final type because it shows
postnominal relative sentences usually being associated with OV languages
and postpositions, however, in noun phrases of this language pre-nominal
and post-nominal genitives are to be found. On the contrary, in the Uralic
languages, where the head-final morphosyntax is fairly homogeneous in their
insistence on head-final NP-internal order, the relative clause regularly
manifests alternative positioning relative to the noun. If indeed IndoEuropean as well as Uralic were head-final types, language change must have
happened. In this respect Old Hungarian can serve as a model being
characterized by (i) SOV order with a morphologically unmarked object: (ii)
V-auxiliary order; (iii) a clause-final complementizer; and (iv) V-final non
finite embedded clauses, because these manifestations of the head-finality of
VP, TP and CP layers of the Proto-Hungarian clause structure developed into
21
a structure with a V-intial VP and preverbal operator positions, and the
postpositional phrase evolved a head-intial pP-layer for particles, which soon
found their way into the left periphery of the sentence. The comparison of the
syntax of headedness in Uralic and Indo-European will have the following
impact on further research: Apart from possibly supporting the assumption
that these two language branches are related the data may provide an answer
to the question which mechanisms of change are the starting point for the
development of mixed directionality.
Katalin É. Kiss (ed.) (2014): The Evolution of Functional Left Peripheries in Hungarian
Syntax. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Tom MARKEY & John COLARUSSO (Hamilton)
Supplementing the Comparative Method: Exaptation and
Proto-Indo-European as a Caucasian Language
To seek remote relationships one must supplement the comparative method
so that distant relationships can be explored and posited with more certainty
than we can now muster. There are a number ways that this might be done.
One may use typology to fine tune existing reconstructions. For example,
when applied to Proto-Indo-European,(PIE), the vowel system emerges as a
vertical vowel system, paralleling that still found in Northwest Caucasian
languages,(NWC).
Such a “typologically tuned” proto-language might then lend itself more
readily to distant phyletic cognates. Once these are established through
sound laws, remote loans might then be recognized. One such loan is the PIE
word for ‘sun’, which seems to be a cult word that originates in South
Caucasian.
Most importantly, however, in long range work one must be prepared to
roam through distinct linguistic “landscapes.” PIE and its daughters have a
distinctive “feel”. If one tries to compare a language to PIE and finds that
same feel, then one is probably reconstructing “Macro-IE.” Anatolian presents
a case like this.
If, however, one finds that forms with a divergent morphology have been
shifted in function when they appear in PIE, then one is dealing with a true
phyletic link. Such links must be accepted even though the “home
environments” for the forms may feel radically different. For example, NWC
prefix-verb-gerund forms have phyletic cognates in Benveniste’s PIE rootenlargement-augment nouns. Conversely, the clitic chain attested in the
22
oldest PIE daughters appears as polypersonal verb inflection in NWC. PIE is a
phyletic cognate with Proto-NWC.
It is exaptation,(to use Stephen Jay Gould’s and Elisabeth S. Verba’s term),
shifting in function and not just in form, that in principle characterizes the
majority of matches in long distance, true phyletic comparison. The classical
comparative method is dominated by adaptation, the mere shifting in form
most often within a functional category (for example, within {+NOUN} or
{+VERB}) or among syntactically closely related categories (for example,
between{+TENSE} and {+MODAL}). Because of the great time depth in
phyletic efforts such morphological and syntactic function tends to become
frozen and shifted causing the families to diverge, but also making life harder
for the comparativist. By recognizing this process of exaptation we propose a
method that will enhance the rigor of long distance comparative efforts.
Ranko MATASOVIĆ (Zagreb)
Clause alignment in Proto-Indo-European
and the Indo-Uralic hypothesis
The hypothesis that Early PIE had ergative clause alignment (e.g. Vaillant
1936, Kortlandt 2009) cannot be proved. Rather, it is meant to explain the
following, apparently unconnected facts about PIE, all of which are
reconstructed independently, and none of which is very common in the
languages of Eurasia: 1. That PIE has a special marker for the nominative case
(most Eurasian languages have unmarked nominatives). 2. That there is a
special form of the vocative (very few Eurasian languages have it). 3. That
there is an unusual system of gender assignment with many inanimate nouns
belonging to the common (m. or f.) gender (in most Eurasian languages with
gender, only animates are m. or f.). 4. That the ending of the nominative
singular is similar to the ending of the genitive singular (such syncretism is
rare in Eurasia). 5. That only the o-stems and the static stems in PIE have a
natural gender assignment, whereby the common gender is composed
exclusively of animates, and the neuter exclusively of inanimates. 6. That
there is a heteroclitic inflexion of a subset of neuter nouns. 7. That personal
pronouns have very different case endings than nouns. 8. That there are two
different sets of personal markers in the PIE verbal categories. 9. That the 3rd
person singular personal marker in one class of verbal categories is similar to
the accusative common / nominative-accusative neuter demonstrative
pronoun. 10. That perfect and thematic present endings appear to go back to
a single EPIE prototype.
23
It has long been observed that clause alignment is an areallys stable feature,
and that languages often change their inherited clause alignment type in
situations of intensive language contact. If EPIE was ergative, this fits well
with several other areal features connecting it to the languages of the
Caucasus (Matasović 2013). However, the Uralic languages, which are the
most probable relatives of PIE, are overwhelmingly nominative-accusative.
This paper will examine how the claim that PIE had ergative clause alignment
can be squared with the Indo-Uralic hypothesis.
Within Uralic, traces of ergativity have been discovered in Eastern Khanty
(also known as Ostyak). In this language, besides the nominative-accusative
construction, there is also an ergative construction with transitive subjects in
the locative case and the active form of the verb. It has been argued that this
construction is an archaism (Havas 2008), and it has recently been suggested
(de Smit 2014) that certain participial constructions in Uralic, with agents in
the genitive case, also represent archaisms, pointing to ergativity in ProtoUralic. It will be argued that these constructions may have correspondents in
the archaic syntax of PIE and that such correspondences can be used to
support both the Indo-Uralic hypothesis and, indirectly, the hypothesis that
Early PIE was ergative.
De Smit, Merlijn 2014. “Proto-Uralic ergativity reconsidered”, Finnisch-ugrische
Mitteilungen 38: 1-34.
Ferenc Havas 2008. “Die Ergativität und die uralischen Sprachen”, Finnisch-ugrische
Forschungen 59.
Kortlandt, Frederik 2009 “C.C. Uhlenbeck on Indo-European, Uralic and Caucasian”,
Historische Sprachforschung 122, 39-47.
André Vaillant 1936. “L'ergatif indo-européen” Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique de
Paris, 37: 93-108.
Ranko Matasović 2013. “Areal Typology of PIE: the case for Caucasian Connections”,
Transactions of the Philological Society 110/2012: 283-310.
Veronika MILANOVA (Vienna)
The Proto-Indo-European kinship terms in *-ter and Anatolian
The kinship terms in *-ter – *ph2tḗr ‘father’, *méh2ter ‘mother’, *dhugh2tḗr
‘daughter’, *bhréh2ter ‘brother’, and *Hi̯énh2tēr ‘husband’s brother’s wife’ – is
a prominent lexical group set in the centre of the PIE kinship terminology and
well-attested in most IE branches. Nevertheless, there are still many open
questions regarding this group.
The hypothesis I am developing in my PhD thesis and would like to present at
the conference states that this lexical group did not originally denote
relatives but rather social statuses (or a better definition maturity or
24
involvement statuses): mature members of a clan, precisely, the people who
have passed through initiations. (Relics of (Pre-)PIE initiations could include
the Hindu initiatory rites (e.g., upanayana), the Eleusinian mysteries and
Männerbünde attested in some IE traditions.) Of course, these words must
have been reinterpreted into kinship terms already in (Late) PIE; otherwise,
they would not designate the same relatives in almost all IE branches. It
might have happened because of changes in social and family structure.
The prominence of the kinship terms in *-ter in the Anatolian branch lies in
their absence, except for *dhugh2tḗr. In my talk I would like to discuss the
question why the other kinship terms in *-ter are unattested in Anatolian. It
would be logical to assume that this language branch had once possessed all
five of them. However, if these words denoted social statuses (or similar)
rather than kinship terms proper, Anatolian may reflect a more original state
of the (Pre-)PIE kinship terminology with nursery words (e.g., atta-, anna-)
referring to relatives and the terms in *-ter denoting social statues.
The Hittite (or Luwian) word MUNUSduttarii̯ata/i- referring to a female
functionary (in Hittite) looks especially fascinating within my hypothesis.
Although such interpretation of this word is connected with certain problems
I am also going to touch upon in my talk, the possibility of using it in such a
sense deserves some attention.
If my hypothesis is correct, it could mean that Anatolian split from (Pre-)PIE
at the time when the semantic change (maturity statuses > kinship terms) as
well as formation of the reconstructed PIE kinship terminology in general
had not been accomplished.
Michaël PEYROT (Berlin)
Indo-Uralic, Indo-Hittite and Indo-Tocharian
In Indo-European studies there is widespread – though not universal –
agreement that Anatolian was the first branch to split off from the protolanguage commonly called Proto-Indo-European (cf. in particular Kloekhorst
2008: 7–11). At the same time, most scholars are reluctant to term this protolanguage “Indo-Hittite”. Nevertheless, in historical linguistics, each node of a
language tree is otherwise mostly referred to with a name referring to the
two major branches it splits into first. Thus, if Anatolian was the first to split
off, the proto-language could be called “Proto-Indo-Anatolian”, simply to
make clear what the position of Anatolian in the tree is. Since “Indo-Hittite” is
a term with tradition, this could be used instead. The term “Indo-Hittite” only
indicates that this node is assumed; it should not in any way suggest a
particularly large distance from this node to the next node down.
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A much more controversial idea that is also frequently found in the scholarly
literature is that after Anatolian Tocharian was the second branch to split off.
Although such a term is not normally used, this node should logically be
called “Indo-Tocharian”. As also with Indo-Hittite, the discussion about IndoTocharian is often centered around the reconstruction of the verbal system,
in particular the position of Tocharian in the prehistory of the s-aorist on the
one hand and the relationship between the perfect and the Hittite ḫi-inflexion
on the other. According to Jasanoff (2003), strong evidence for both IndoHittite and Indo-Tocharian can be found in this domain, while others prefer
different reconstructions that drastically reduce the consequences for the
family tree (Ringe 1990, Kortlandt 1994, Peyrot 2013). More promising
seemed evidence from the lexicon, as advanced by Winter (1997), but also
this has been discarded as too uncertain to be used for the phylogeny of the
Indo-European languages (Malzahn forth.), and for instance Pinault prefers to
use the neutral term “Tocharian-Anatolian isoglosses” (2006).
The goal of this paper is twofold. It wants to explore and help define the
methodology for establishing an Indo-Tocharian node, which will result in a
re-evaluation of some of the evidence. It also aims at discussing new evidence
with reference not only to Indo-Hittite, but also to Indo-Uralic.
Jasanoff, Jay H., 2003, Hittite and the Indo-European verb. Oxford.
Kloekhorst, Alwin, 2008, Etymological dictionary of the Hittite inherited lexicon. Leiden.
Kortlandt, Frederik H.H., 1994, The Fate of the Sigmatic Aorist in Tocharian. Bernfried
Schlerath (ed.), Tocharisch, Akten der Fachtagung der Indogermanischen Gesellschaft,
Berlin, September 1990. Reykjavík, 61–65.
Malzahn, Melanie, forth., The second one to branch off? The Tocharian lexicon revisited.
Peyrot, Michaël, 2013, The Tocharian subjunctive. A study in syntax and verbal stem
formation. Leiden.
Pinault, Georges-Jean, 2006, Retour sur le numéral “un” en tokharien. Indogermanische
Forschungen 111: 71–97.
Ringe, Donald A., 1990, The Tocharian active s-preterite, a classical sigmatic aorist.
Münchener Studien zur Sprachwissenschaft 51: 183–242.
Winter, Werner, 1997, Lexical archaisms in the Tocharian languages. Hans H. Hock (ed.),
Historical, Indo-European, and lexicographical studies: A Festschrift for Ladislav
Zgusta on the occasion of his 70th birthday. Berlin, 183–193.
Georges-Jean PINAULT (Paris)
About the “distant” relationships of Tocharian
The data from Tocharian, that is from the two Tocharian languages (A and B),
have been used in different genetic and areal frameworks, corresponding to
various concerns of comparative linguistics in course of time. Three issues
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can be roughly identified: 1) Do some special features of Tocharian
morphosyntax require the hypothesis of contacts with non Indo-European
languages, for instance Caucasian, Uralic or Altaic languages? 2) Which are
the possible non Indo-European sources of loanwords at the Proto-Tocharian
or Common Tocharian stage? 3) Although Tocharian seems to belong to the
so-called “Core Indo-European”, it has been repeatedly claimed that it was
especially archaic in some respects, so that it would have been the second
language, after Anatolian, to break off from Proto-Indo-European.
The latter claim has been seriously put into question during the past decade,
and cannot be longer upheld in that form. However, the two former issues are
still relevant. In addition to the lexicon they concern for instance the peculiar
case system, the plural formations, and also the marking of transitivity in the
verbal system.
The Tocharian evidence has played some role in one or the other
formulations of the Indo-Hittite and Indo-Uralic hypotheses.
These facts are of course related to the specific geographic location of
Tocharian languages in Central Asia. It is currently assumed that ProtoTocharian has been developed in isolation from the other Indo-European
languages, and that it was more subject to non Indo-European influences. The
arguments that have been ventured in that field should be weighed again on
the basis of recent researches.
Roland POOTH (Cologne)
Is the “tēzzi principle” a plausible inference?
My presentation will provide comparative and internal evidence from Early
Vedic, Old Avestan (i.e. Indo-Iranian), Greek and some other so-called “Inner
Indo-European” languages pointing to a relatively recent and innovative
character of the tripartite present/imperfect (imperfective) vs. aorist
(perfective) vs. perfect/pluperfect (anterior) tense and aspect system, that is,
the type of tense and aspect system which is well-known from the two major
“Inner Indo-European” languages Vedic and Greek. In addition to a
systematic comparison I will offer a brief overview of the major
crosslinguistic grammaticalization paths leading to this type of tense and
aspect system. The comparative and internal evidence is thus used to
strengthen or weaken the inference which has been labeled the “tēzzi
principle”. Within the course of my presententation it will be possible to give
a proper answer to the following question: On the background of
crosslinguistic, comparative and internal facts, is it really a plausible
inference to assume that Hittite tēmi, tēši, tēzzi ‘say’, Lycian tadi ‘puts’, etc. are
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innovated present tense forms which were backformed from a prior common
root aorist or are these forms more plausibly archaisms going back to a
common proto-category which was lost by the time of the grammaticalization
of the tripartite tense and aspect system of Vedic and Greek? I will thus
discuss an eventual special status of the Anatolian present indicative forms as
opposed to the Greek and Vedic root aorist indicative and injunctive forms
(e.g. 3rd sg. adhāt, pl. adhur ‘put’) and other such forms. The discussion will
finally amount to the question whether such a special status of the Anatolian
forms can or cannot be used to prove or disprove a special status of the
Proto-Anatolian branch within the IE language family.
Kirill RESHETNIKOV (Moscow)
Indo-European and Uralic: separated twins, children
from a large family or just stepbrothers?
In our talk, we are going to discuss several basic hypotheses concerning the
relationship between Indo-European and Uralic. These hypotheses are: 1) the
Indo-Uralic hypothesis that implies the existence of a remote proto-language
whose descendants would be Indo-European and Uralic only, 2) the claim
about an even greater macrofamily including Indo-European and Uralic along
with some other (commonly recognized) families such as Dravidian and
Altaic, with the most advanced version of this model being known as the
Nostratic hypothesis, 3) the interpretation of Indo-Uralic lexical parallels,
including those found in basic vocabulary, as a result of mere borrowing,
mostly from Proto-Indo-European into Proto-Uralic – an explanation which
now appears the least persuasive. Although a range of comparisons link IndoEuropean and/or Uralic to other families, thus serving as evidence for the
Nostratic hypothesis, there remain a number of remarkable pairwise
parallels, not only lexical, limited merely to Uralic and Indo-European. So
would it be reasonable to postulate an Indo-Uralic branch within a larger
macrofamily?
Elisabeth RIEKEN (Marburg)
More on „Western Affinities” of Anatolian
At the last Fachtagung der Indogermanischen Gesellschaft on the IndoEuropean lexicon in Copenhagen in 2012 Craig Melchert presented a paper
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on „Western Affinities” of Anatolian. There he read paper proposing that
Anatolian diverged from Proto-Indo-European to form a separate subgroup
first, but then, at a later stage, was in contact with other branches of IndoEuropean normally thought to be Western. Like Puhvel (1994) before him,
Melchert surveyed the Anatolian vocabulary for Anatolian-Western (i.e. Italic,
Celtic, Germanic, ± Greek and Baltic) isoglosses, both root etymologies and
word equations. He detected 25 cases. In addition, he found three
gramaticalized particles and another lexeme that he considers to be secure
cases of common innovation.
As is well-known lexemes and particles, which are easily isolated and
analyzed even by non-native speakers, are relatively likely to be borrowed
also in situations of superficial contact. In my own paper, I shall review the
Anatolian-Western isoglosses on the morpho-syntactic level, which are less
prone to borrowing. Some of them have already been suggested before by
Porzig (21974) and Kammenhuber (1961), but need revision after 50 years of
on-going research. Others have not yet been adduced in order to answer the
question of the dialectal position of Anatolian within the Indo-European
language family.
Kammenhuber, Annelies (1961). „Zur Stellung des Hethitisch-Luvischen innerhalb der
indogermanischen Grundsprache”, Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung 77,
31-75.
Porzig, Walter P. (1954). Die Gliederung des indogermanischen Sprachgebiets, Heidelberg:
Winter.
Puhvel, Jaan (1994). „West-Indo-European Affinities of Anatolian”. In George Dunkel et al.
(eds.), Früh-, Mittel- und Spätindogermanisch, Wiesbaden: Reichert, 315-324.
Zsolt SIMON (Munich)
The alleged Proto-Indo-European loanwords in Proto-Uralic
The only piece of evidence for locating the Proto-Indo-European (PIE)
homeland in the Pontic Steppe area is the assumption of PIE loanwords in
Proto-Uralic (PU). In view of the importance of this problem, it is surprising
that there has been no serious critical investigation of this question. This talk
intends to fill this gap, based on a collection of all suggested loanwords. The
first part of the talk is methodologically oriented focusing mainly on the
criteria of an assured loanword. The second part presents the results of the
critical analysis, and it will be shown that most of assumed loanwords can be
safely discarded, since (a) they are not demonstrably of PIE/PU age; (b) their
reconstruction is problematic on PIE/PU side; (c) they require ad hoc sound
substitutions; or (d) are semantically distant. Even the remaining, very few
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putative loanwords show phonological problems, not to mention that in such
a case also the possibility of pure chance should be taken seriously. Assumed
loanwords that represent no problems whatsoever are extremely rare (three
or four cases at best), which casts serious doubts on the validity of the
hypothesis of PIE – PU contacts.
George STAROSTIN (Moscow)
Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Uralic among other proto-languages of
Eurasia: a lexicostatistical evaluation
In this talk, I plan to briefly discuss the results of a recent lexicostatistical
analysis, conducted by myself with the assistance of several colleagues from
the Moscow school of comparative-historical linguistics, that could help shed
some additional light on the prehistory of Proto-Indo-European and its
position among other linguistic families of Eurasia, including, but not limited
to, the Uralic family.
The analysis positively differs from conventional lexicostatistical procedures
in several important respects. First, in order to reduce technical complexity
as well as efficiently filter out recent «noise», it takes as its starting point
relatively reliable low-level reconstructions (such as Proto-Germanic, ProtoSlavic, Proto-Samoyed, Proto-Permic, etc.) rather than the entire mass of
relevant forms from all modern languages. Second, analysis was restricted to
50 basic lexicon items that reveal the highest average degree of historical
stability across language families all over the world (as calculated in a
previous study by Sergei Starostin). Third, potential cognation was scored
according to two different procedures: fully automated analysis, based on the
so-called «consonant class method» of determining phonetic similarity, and
manual analysis, based on additional informed knowledge about the histories
of particular language groups and regular phonetic correspondences where
those have been previously established.
One of the most important results of this analysis is that in both versions of
the procedure (automated and manual), it is the Uralic taxon that is
consistently identified as the closest neighbour of Indo-European on the
resulting classificatory tree, whereas all other probable connections differ
significantly depending on the particular conditions of analysis. Further
investigation shows that from a general typological point of view, the
distribution of potential cognates between Proto-Indo-European and ProtoUralic is more compatible with the scenario of a deep-level genetic
relationship rather than that of prehistoric areal contacts. In the last part of
the talk, I will explain the motivation behind such a decision, as well as
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present some ideas on how a theory of Indo-Uralic relationship, built
primarily on basic lexicon isoglosses, could be developed further without
running into some of the problems typical of recent studies in «Nostratic»
linguistics.
Michiel DE VAAN (Lausanne)
Proto-Indo-European *sm and *si ‘one’
The PIE morphemes *si and *sm are both attested in the meaning ‘one’ and as
a constituent element of deictic pronouns. In the latter case, their distribution
is partly complementary: masculine/neuter *to-sm- but feminine *to-si-. This
raises the question of their mutual relationship and their original function. If
the feminine gender arose at the post-Indo-Hittite stage, PIE *sm and *si did
not originally have a gender connotation. In Early PIE, *si may have been the
inanimate counterpart of deictic and animate *se and *sim, explaining the use
of *si in the feminine (< inanimate) gender. The insertion of *sm ‘one,
together’ in the pronouns may have started in the locative in *-sm-i.
Altogether, the analysis of *sm and *si gives occasion to rethink some of the
changes in the morphosyntax of reference from Indo-Uralic through Early PIE
to Late PIE.
Christoph WENGER (Berlin)
Old, Really Old or Really, Really Old – Loan Relations
between (P)IE and Uralic
Loan relations between Indo-European and Uralic languages have been
known, and investigated, for a long time. What is lacking, though, is an
overview and, if possible, a scrutinous analysis of the different strata:
relations involving attested languages (einzelsprachlich) and contacts
involving certain stages of reconstructed languages (voreinzelsprachlich,
nachgrundsprachlich, grundsprachlich, possibly even vorgrundsprachlich).
The paper aims to show examples for each of the aforementioned strata,
concentrating on material pertaining to PIE while presenting possibilities to
come to terms with notions like Early or Late PIE.
The most feasible way to do this is to track traces of archaic features of PIE in
Uralic loans. On a different occasion (Münster-Leiden conference 2008, also
Fachtagung Salzburg 2008), I tried to establish alternations in root anlaut
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and auslaut (h1/d and h2/m/u̯ ); assuming that in “standard” PIE this
alternation is no longer in effect, it may still be seen in earlier variants of PIE.
In fact, I will present several examples of Uralic roots representing with
strong probability Early PIE loans featuring root alternation.
Jorma Koivulehto (1991) Uralische Evidenz für die Larnyngaltheorie. Sitzungsberichte
Österreiche Akademie der Wissenschaften. Philosophisch-historische Klasse. Wien.
Frederik Kortlandt (2002) The Indo-Uralic Verb. In: Finno-Ugrians and Indo-Europeans:
Linguistic and Literary Contacts: Proceedings of the Symposium at the University of
Groningen, November 22–24, 2001. Maastricht.
Mikhail ZHIVLOV (Moscow)
Indo-European laryngeals and their Indo-Uralic
and Nostratic precursors
In the present talk we will focus on Uralic and Altaic correspondences of
Indo-European inlaut laryngeals and combinations of resonant and laryngeal.
Starting from the sound correspondences established by V.M. Illič-Svityč, we
will try to show that instead of wholesale acceptance or rejection of these
correspondences, they can and must be revised. One of the areas where such
revision is needed is that of Indo-European laryngeals: a frequent criticism of
Illič-Svityč’s Nostratic theory is that “Nostratic reconstructions fail to account
for well-established IE laryngeals” (B. Vine). It turns out that some non-trivial
Uralic and Altaic correspondences of IE laryngeals can be found. One of our
conclusions is that IE combinations of nasal and laryngeal correspond to
velar nasals in Uralic and Altaic. Some of the examples of this correspondence
are: 1) PIE *senh2- ‘to search; to obtain’, Proto-Uralic *soŋi- ‘to wish, to want’,
2) PIE *smH- ‘summer’, Proto-Uralic *suŋi ‘summer’, 3) PIE *tnh2-eu- ‘thin’,
Proto-Tungusic *taŋa ‘lean, thin’, 4) PIE *h2enh2t- ‘duck’, Proto-Turkic *aŋɨt
‘duck’.
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