Attested in cuneiform, hieroglyphic and alphabetic texts dating to the first two millennia BCE, the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family is intriguing already by itself. But... Show moreAttested in cuneiform, hieroglyphic and alphabetic texts dating to the first two millennia BCE, the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family is intriguing already by itself. But Anatolian is also of central importance for the reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European, the last common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Not only is it the earliest attested branch, it has also long been suspected that Anatolian reflects an earlier stage of the proto-language than that underlying the rest of the family.Focusing on the three best-attested Anatolian languages, Hittite, Luwian and Lycian, this book aims to further our understanding of Anatolian, and by extension Proto-Indo-European, by offering in-depth analyses of essential issues in Anatolian historical morphology and semantics. Various well-known as well as several newly adduced topics are scrutinized to determine whether the innovations leading to the discrepancies with the rest of Indo-European took place on the Anatolian or on the non-Anatolian side.The present study suggests that Anatolian is in many respects closer to the ancestor of the other Indo-European languages than is often claimed. Nevertheless, the investigation has also led to new evidence in favor of the hypothesis that Anatolian was the first branch to split off from the family. Show less
In this article it is argued that the Luwic paradigm known as ‘i-mutation’ originated in ablauting i-stems, which lost the oblique suffix by sound law and spread categorically, through the identity... Show moreIn this article it is argued that the Luwic paradigm known as ‘i-mutation’ originated in ablauting i-stems, which lost the oblique suffix by sound law and spread categorically, through the identity of the oblique cases, initially to the consonant stems, and later to the o-stems. The ā-stems, which are argued to survive as a class not only in Lycian but also in Luwian, escaped the spread because their oblique cases were not identical. The same goes for the u-stems, except in those cases where the stem vowel was consonantal. Show less
This article explores the use of sign sequences (plene writing) in Hieroglyphic Luwian. It isargued that the vowel signs in these sequences are frequently used as space-fillers in almost all texts... Show moreThis article explores the use of sign sequences (plene writing) in Hieroglyphic Luwian. It isargued that the vowel signs in these sequences are frequently used as space-fillers in almost all texts dateableto the Iron Age. Space-filling explains the presence of many vowel signs commonly taken as linguisticallyvoid, and a new transliteration method is proposed to mark these space-fillers in a uniform way. It is alsoshown that many vowel signs cannot have been used as space-fillers. Rather, these signs are linguisticallysignificant and bound to express a phonetic feature. On a methodological level, this article considers how wecan meaningfully distinguish space-fillers from linguistically real plene writing, as both were not markeddifferently by the scribes. The last section examines space-fillers in greater detail: their chronological distributionand vowel quality are treated, as are some conspicuous and rare types of space-filling. Show less
