Hittite & Celtic dative in /k/ ?

[Damien Perrotin]

[ moderator re-formatted ]

Initial message from
Lloyd Anderson

[ moderator snip ]

>Here is a tidbit linking Celtic and Hittite which I found many years ago, when
>compiling typological comparisons of the semantic domains of "be" and "have".
>I wondered at the time whether it is a relic Dative case preposition /
>postposition which Hittite and Celtic shared, presumably as a retention, but
>conceivably as an areal phenomenon, or both of the above.  Does Tocharian have
>it too?

>(I have no idea whether the later Indic Dative postposition with /k/ is
>related or a chance lookalike.)

>The forms being discussed, the dative case of the 1st singular pronoun, are
>statistically likely to be highly conservative, both because they are pronouns
>and also as oblique cases rather than the more often innovating nominative
>etc.

[ moderator snip ]

the comparison is unlikely, as the Hittite form is also used for the
accusative, an use for which it has cognates in Germanic (gotic mik) and
perhaps in Slavic (russian ko - to with only an allative meaning). The
primary meaning was probably allative, as for most accusative in IE.
the Goidelic form is assumed to derive from *angh "near" which is found in
Latin angustus. Its closest cognates, assuming to Stokes, is Breton hag
(and) and Welsh ac (same meaning)