Italic close to Slavic?

[James Bilbro]

Since I haven't checked my email in some time, this response may be a bit
belated, as I still have 376(!) messages from this list yet to check.  (This
is too much!)

In any case, what you may be remembering is that Celtic, Anatolian, and
Tocharian all share all share a passive formation in /r/, as does Italic
(and Phrygian?).  All four are also "centum"-languages.  The r-passive seems
to be a shared retention of a fairly archaic formant.  Of course, this
should not be interpreted to indicate any closer relationship between these
languages in the PIE-period, beyond the fact that they were all
centum-dialects.

Sincerely,
Jim Bilbro

-----Original Message-----
From: ECOLING at aol.com <ECOLING at aol.com>
Date: Wednesday, February 23, 2000 1:46 AM

>For Italic,
>is there any argument that on balance
>the geographic position of Italic in the earliest
>stages of PIE dialect network would put it
>closer to Slavic, or Armenian, or etc.,
>because of a few shared isoglosses with those
>which might be common innovations?
>Or are any sharings retentions?

>In either case,
>Perhaps shared verbal conjugations?
>If so, shared with which other IE groupings?

>I am trying to dredge up some old memories.

>Lloyd Anderson
>Ecological Linguistics