Dating the final IE unity

[petegray]

> >Sanskrit, Latin and Mycenaean ....
> ...Has anyone here disputed their close similarity?

I'm happy to, if required.   The "similarity" depends where you look.
There are some major restructurings in Latin verb morphology that seem to be
being ignored by the claim of "close similarity".  And since no finite verb
forms other than third persons occur in Mycenaean, the claim might also seem
to be based more on classical Greek, where we can identify traces and relics
of an original situation, but which is certainly not "closely similar" to
Sanskrit in the form in which we actually have it.

I freely grant that Greek and Sanskrit present closely similar pictures of
what their common ancestor probably was, but let's remember that the claim
was made to support an argument about the time it takes for languages to
change.  In that context, the claim can only be valid if based on the
languages as they actually are, not on our reconstructed proto-forms.
Greek as it is has thematicised the vast majority of verbs.   The "closely
similar" claim ignores that.   Greek as it is has collapsed nominal
morphology (or Sanskrit has expanded it) so that one language has five
cases, the other 8.    The "closely similar" claim ignores that.   Sanskrit
does not show the aspectual system which is so vital to the non-finite verb
forms of Greek.

I could go on.  I had not disputed the claim to "close similarity" because I
recognised it as an unimportant over-statement, and in effect an unprovable
generalisation - since it depends so much on what you look at, how you
count, and so on.   But when you suggest that I actually approve of your
claim, you go too far!

Peter