> None that I would really accept myself, but it is somehow inherent in the
> story, is it not?
That's what I thought you might say. To suggest that Anatolian had the
augment raises a number of other elements of the story, not least a
Greek-Armenian-IndIr-Anatolian isogloss. Can such an isogloss or grouping
be supported by any other evidence, in the way the Greek-Armenian-IndIr
group without Anatolian can? Such an isogloss would also question the
"Anatolian splits first" idea.
Or alternatively, we have an augment in generalised PIE before Anatolian
splits off, and so no isoglossic grouping is needed. But then we have to
say that all the other branches lost it, rather than allowing
Greek-Armenian-IndIr to innovate - yet we know that this grouping was highly
innovative.
So on the whole, I'm not yet inclined to be persuaded that the augment is
"inherent in the story" of Anatolian.
Peter