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Transfer of Morphemes and Grammatical Structure in Ancient Anatolia

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Transfer of Morphemes and Grammatical Structure in Ancient Anatolia CHAPTER FIFTEEN TRANSFER OF MORPHEMES AND GRAMMATICAL STRUCTURE IN ANCIENT ANATOLIA Folke Josephson Recent research has successfully developed historical sociolinguistics in the study of Anatolian and has stressed the importance of Hittite-Luvian bilingualism. Case endings and nominal suffixes were brought into Hit- tite in Luvian loan words. Adoption of Hurrian morphemes by IE Anato- lian was insignificant in spite of intensive Hurrian—Luvian bilingualism. Structural traits that have been believed to be of Hattic and Hurrian ori- gin and developmental tendencies leading to unusual syntactic traits of Indo-European Anatolian should be seen as developments of inherited Indo-European structures. Anatolian split ergativity can be explained internally. The historical development of the functional scope of local/ directional enclitic particles is also an internal phenomenon. Later com- mon trends in the historical development of Anatolian like the loss of several sentence introductory connective particles and local/directional particles imply a reversal of common trends that led to the establishment of earlier functions of these elements. Structural dissimilarities account for the lack of transfer of morphemes and grammatical elements from Hurrian and Hattic, but Hattic may have been influenced by IE Anatolian structures. 1 Introduction In an article on ancient Anatolia as a linguistic area and areal diffusion as a challenge to the comparative method (Watkins 2001), Calvert Watkins was concerned with diffusional convergence in phonology and morpho- syntax and emphasized that the Anatolian subgroup of Indo-European had close contacts with Hattic and the Hurrian of Mitanni and ancient contacts with Semitic Sumero-Akkadian. On the subject of three syntactic isoglosses of Indo-European Anatolian, i.e. a split ergative system, chains of enclitic particles and pronouns, and an extensive use of phrase connec- tors Watkins observed that these traits had correspondents in Hurrian and 338 folke josephson Hattic. Hurrian shows chains of morphemes and enclitic pronouns and Hattic a sentence introductory particle. According to Watkins (2001, 60–63) rapid linguistic changes in the Anatolian subgroup of Indo-European imply convergent innovations which are due to intensive language con- tact and probably represent a period of punctuation. This article will be concerned with productivity of suffixes, copying and loss of morphemes, and rapid change in Anatolian morphology and syntax. On the subject of the syntactic isoglosses mentioned by Watkins particular emphasis will be given to the establishment and subsequent rapid reduction of the typologically unusual system of Hittite and Luvian particles in final position in the Wackernagel chain of particles which has no parallels in the non-Indo-European languages of the Anatolian lin- guistic area. The two related languages kept even pace in this process of rapid change and the importance of intensive Hittite-Luvian bilingualism is obvious. Special attention will be given to morphosyntactic innovations in an effort to determine if convergent innovations in a period of punc- tuation or common development of genetic similarities in closely related languages intensified by contacts within the group should be considered sufficient for rapid structural changes in this domain. 2 Linguistic Area, Historical Sociolinguistics in the Study of Anatolian Watkins (2001) discussed Ancient Anatolia as a linguistic area and areal dif- fusion as a challenge to the comparative method and stated that because Hurrian and Hattic are ergative languages in very close contact with the Indo-European Anatolian languages they could have influenced Anatolian ergativity but admitted that Anatolian split ergativity is not similar to the ergativity of Hurrian and Hattic. He also stated that Anatolian chains of enclitic pronouns and particles have striking parallels in Hattic and Hur- rian though there was no diffusion of morphemes and that Hattic pos- sesses an initial sentence connector which is also a feature of Anatolian. He believed that these facts could be arguments for Hurrian and Hattic influence. The discussion of language contact between the Indo-European languages of Anatolia has gained momentum in recent years and copying of morphemes as a result of interrelations between these languages is a matter that has come to the fore. I argued in Josephson (1999) that historical sociolinguistics should be a viable method in Anatolian studies and generally in the study of ancient .
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