The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread's Sequel

[WeepingElf]

OK. I think that you know these matters better than I do, and maybe you know of decisive details my self-taught knowledge from handbooks misses.

[hwhatting]

Let's celebrate PIE day

[WeepingElf]

So what do you think of the Greco-Italic group I proposed?

[hwhatting]

So what do you think of the Greco-Italic group I proposed?

Not much, as you can gather from my response. Sorry!

[Raphael]

Let's celebrate PIE day

Why today?

[hwhatting]

Let's celebrate PIE day

Why today?

Press the red button to find out
On a meta-level, because I got around to linking that cartoon today.

[Raphael]

Press the red button to find out

Ah! Thank you.

[WeepingElf]

So what do you think of the Greco-Italic group I proposed?

Not much, as you can gather from my response. Sorry!

Well, I have abandoned that notion. There is not much that really connects these languages except a few archaisms such as the non-merger of PIE *a and *o, and of course you can't build a node on archaisms.

[abahot]

This is more about Indo-European in general, but I figured that this is the best place to ask.
Various Indo-European branches appear to be conservative with different features from the proto-language -- Hellenic preserves vowel quality (at least, in the ancient times), Balto-Slavic preserves seven out of the eight cases of PIE up to the present day, and so forth. Is there anything Germanic is particularly conservative in? The only thing I can think of is the distinction between primary and secondary verb formations, but is there anything else more significant?

[Zju]

This is more of a statement of historical happenstance than a fact - no IE branch has to be conservative about anything.
If you so much wanted, you could say that Germanic is conservative in keeping the three stop series distinct.

[abahot]

Of course it's historical happenstance. It would be odd if each IE branch were conservative about one thing in particular.
"Keeping the three stop series distinct" is also shared with Hellenic and Indo-Iranian. I'm wondering about things that Germanic preserves unusually well compared to other IE languages. I gave cases in Balto-Slavic as an example because they preserve many more cases than other contemporary IE branches.

[abahot]

But now that you mention it, I never really noticed how much other IE branches have a tendency to do something weird with the voiced aspirates.

[WeepingElf]

But now that you mention it, I never really noticed how much other IE branches have a tendency to do something weird with the voiced aspirates.

Well, the voiced aspirates were rather weird to start with - such sounds are rare in the world's languages (except on the Indian subcontinent, where those languages that have them have either inherited or borrowed them from Old Indic, which means that all those languages have to count as one single data point), which probably means that they usually aren't particularly stable, and there are quite a few scholars who doubt that PIE really had them. Yet, they are the most economic reconstruction for this set of phonemes.

[Talskubilos]

Except if you believe the fringe "Celtic from the West" theory, Celtic was orginally spoken somewhere in Western Central Europe (Hallstatt culture), while it's now spoken on the Western fringe of Europe.

"Fringe" doesn't equate with wrong, my friend.

[keenir]

Except if you believe the fringe "Celtic from the West" theory, Celtic was orginally spoken somewhere in Western Central Europe (Hallstatt culture), while it's now spoken on the Western fringe of Europe.

"Fringe" doesn't equate with wrong, my friend.

In terms of geography, thats quite true. In terms of theories, I believe the expression is "the onus is on you, my friend."

[hwhatting]

"Fringe" doesn't equate with wrong

Where did I say that it does?

[zompist]

Saw this while catching up..

Balto-Slavic preserves seven out of the eight cases of PIE up to the present day,

Or it innovated them.

19th century linguists weren't so hip to the processes of grammaticalization: they could easily understand a language losing cases, but not gaining them.

(FWIW, Lehmann points out that the instr/dat/abl suffixes in Sanskrit have some of the sandhi phenomena of separate words.)

[hwhatting]

(FWIW, Lehmann points out that the instr/dat/abl suffixes in Sanskrit have some of the sandhi phenomena of separate words.)

Yes. There are many IEanists nowadays who think that the elaborate case system traditionally reconstructed for PIE developed only after Anatolian split off. The question then is whether there was a post-Anatolian IE that had the full eight-case system, from which individual cases were lost in the non-Anatolian families, or whether the indivudual languages only partially participated in the accretion of cases to begin with.

[WeepingElf]

One scholar (I forgot who) once wrote that we'd reconstruct PIE differently if the language of the old Indian religious hymns had been Hittite and that of the Boghazköy cuneiform tablets had been Vedic. Yet, all of the eight cases of Vedic appear to have cognates in other branches of non-Anatolian IE, though the matches are not always perfect. It is similar with the personal endings and the present, imperfect, aorist and perfect forms of the verb. But Anatolian is another matter.

[Talskubilos]

One scholar (I forgot who) once wrote that we'd reconstruct PIE differently if the language of the old Indian religious hymns had been Hittite and that of the Boghazköy cuneiform tablets had been Vedic. Yet, all of the eight cases of Vedic appear to have cognates in other branches of non-Anatolian IE, though the matches are not always perfect. It is similar with the personal endings and the present, imperfect, aorist and perfect forms of the verb. But Anatolian is another matter.

This could be explained as the result of an imprefect language replacement process.