Information AboutItalo-celtic |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT ITALO-CELTIC | |
| indo-european languages | |
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One argument for Italo-Celtic was the thematic Genitive in ''i'' (''dominus'', ''domini''). Both in Italic (''Popliosio Valesiosio'', Lapis Satricanus ) and in Celtic ( Lepontic , Celtiberian ''-o''), however, traces of the ''-osyo'' Genitive of Proto-Indo-European have been discovered, so that the spread of the ''i''-Genitive must have occurred in the two groups independently (or by areal diffusion). Calvert Watkins (1966) recognizes that "the community of ''-ī'' in Italic and Celtic is attributable to early contact, rather than to an original unity." The ''i''-Genitive has been compared to the so-called Cvi formation in Sanskrit , but that too is probably a comparatively late development. The phenomenon is probably related to the feminine long ''i'' stems (see Devi Inflection ) and the Luwian ''i''-mutation. Another argument was the ''ā''-subjunctive. Both Italic and Celtic have a subjunctive descended from an earlier optative in ''-ā-''. Such an optative is not known from other languages, but the suffix occurs in Balto-Slavic and Tocharian past tense formations, and possibly in Hittite ''-ahh-''. Both Celtic and Italic have collapsed the PIE Aorist and Perfect into a single past tense. In both groups, this is a relatively late development of the proto-languages, possibly dating to the time of "Italo-Celtic" language contact. Since both Proto-Celtic and Proto-Italic date to the early Iron Age (say, the centuries on either side of 1000 BC ), a probable time frame for the assumed period of language contact would be the late Bronze Age, the early to mid 2nd Millennium BC . REFERENCES
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