From: tgpedersen
Message: 51933
Date: 2008-01-27
>Yes. And therefore what? Watkins is saying here that Hittite must have
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@> wrote:
> >
> >
> > > Thefore, "one must independently know
> > > the history of population movements and contacts among speakers
> > > of the relevant languages" before comparative method can be
> > > applied.
> >
> > That is irrelevant to this:
> >
> > > The
> > > comparative method cannot be used as evidence for population
> > > movements.
> >
> > Yes it can.
> >
> >
> > Torsten
> >
>
> <http://www.linguistlist.org/issues/14/14-1085.html>
>
> "Calvert Watkins (''An Indo-European Linguistic Area and its
> Characteristics: Ancient Anatolia. Areal Diffusion as a Challenge to
> the Comparative Method?'') discusses Dixon's model in relation to
> Indo- European, with particular reference to ancient Anatolia. As he
> points out, Indo- European is usually considered the ''laboratory''
> for the traditional comparative method, but actually it is also a
> very interesting field for areal studies. A case in point is ancient
> Anatolia, where Indo-European languages like Hittite and Luvian came
> into contact with non Indo-European languages like Hattic, Old
> Assyrian and Hurrian. Watkins argues that the languages of Anatolia
> show common innovations, both in phonology and in morphosyntax. As
> for phonology, we can find phenomena of convergence in the evolution
> of the system of stop consonants, in the preservation of
> Indo-European laryngeals, and in the development of the vowel
> system. As for morphosyntax, split ergative system, development of
> enclitic chains of particles and anaphoric pronouns after the first
> stressed word of the sentence and the use of phrase connectors to
> link all sentences of a discourse are found only in the Anatolian
> subgroup within the Indo-European family. However they are present,
> in varying degrees, both in Hattic and Hurrian. As a matter of fact,
> these convergent innovations took place between 2200 and 1900/1700
> BC. It is indeed a quite short period and that, however, languages
> still retained their individuality. He also deals with phenomena of
> language contact between Greek and Anatolian, where there is
> ''diffusion from one Indo-European group to another, without the
> ultimate development of a real linguistic area'' (Watkins: 56). At
> least, he discusses Heath's (1997) model of language change, where,
> in contrast to Dixon's terminology, the ''equilibrium'' is referred
> to situation of static monolingualism, while the ''punctuation''
> occurs under intense language contact. He concludes that ''Both
> genetic families and diffusional areas would have their own
> distribution of rapid abrupt and slow gradual change, and here we
> might see sequences of punctuation and equilibrium as well''
> (Watkins: 63)."
>