Indo-Hittite

[Peter A. Michalove]

Larry Trask observed on this list recently that Sturtevant's Indo-Hittite
hypothesis is terminologically awkward, but that if we call it Indo-Anatolian
(which is more correct), then it's not substantively different from saying
merely that Anatolian was the first branch to split off from Indo-European, a
position that many Indo-Europeanists agree with.  That is, there's no
substantive difference between the following trees, (1) and (2), other than
which level you choose to call PIE:


(1)       Indo-Anatolian
            /       \
            /          \
Anatolian       PIE
                  |
                  |
        Germanic, Hellenic, Slavic, etc.



(2)         PIE
           /        \
          /          \
Anatolian    Non-Anatolian
                |
                |
        Germanic, Hellenic, Slavic, etc.


(Please forgive the difficulty of drawing trees in email.) (:-)

But I wonder if anyone on this list does see a substantive difference between
the two models.  That is, does tree (1) (which says PIE and Anatolian were
sister languages on a par) imply that features characteristic of PIE but not
Anatolian (like the feminine gender, the more elaborate system of verbal moods
and tenses, etc.) are innovations in (non-Anatolian) PIE?

Conversely, does tree (2) imply that these features were present in PIE (or
whatever you want to call the predecessor of Anatolian and non-Anatolian) and
subsequently lost in Anatolian?  Or is tree (2) less likely to imply any
position on how early these features were present?

Similarly, if you're comparing Indo-European to other languages on a Nostratic
level, and you want to avoid "reaching down" (that is, attributing features of
only one branch to the entire family), does tree (1) mean that you should only
cite features that are present in Anatolian and elsewhere in IE, while tree (2)
makes no such requirement?

Peter A. Michalove      michalov at uiuc.edu
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