Lexical archaisms, semantic directionality and the position of Tocharian
This post is related to what I am currently busy with: preparing and introductory course on Tocharian. There is a long-debated dilemma in Tocharian studies, which concern the position of Tocharian within the Indo-European language tree. Due to its status as a kentum-language, most scholars of the early 20th ct. regarded Tocharian as a western Indo-European language (together with Celtic, Germanic, Italic and so forth) rather than an eastern language. This view is not supported anymore, but the position of Tocharian still remains an enigma. Today, most scholars agree that Tocharian branched off from the Indo-European proto-language directly (and is thus not more closely related to any other branch). The disagreement of contemporary scholars is whether Tocharian branched off second, after Anatolian, and before the other Indo-European branches or not. There are several arguments in favor of the second-to-branch-off theory. One argument is the occurrence of lexical archaisms in Tocharian, meaning that a handful of etymologies have preserved a more general meaning in Tocharian, whereas the other branches show a more spezialized meaning. Examples are:
Toch. AB yäp- ‘enter’, Skt. yabh-, Greek oíphō, Russ. ebu ‘have intercourse’ < PIE *yebh- ‘enter’ (LIV:309) The original meaning of the verb is preserved in Tocharian.
TB kärweñe ‘stone, rock’, Skt. grāvan- ‘stone for pressing out soma’, Welsh breuan ‘handmill’, Old Ch. Slav. žrǔny ‘handmill’.
TB śrān-* ‘(adult) man’ < PIE *ģerh₂-ōn, Skt. járant- ‘old, fragile’, Gr. géront- ‘geriatric’, Oss. zärond ‘old’ < PIE * ģerh₂- ‘mature, grow’ (LIV:165). The meaning ‘old’, ‘geriatric’ is an innovation of the non-Tocharian languages.
The idea of lexical archaisms is not totally irrelevant; as I wrote in my previous blog, we know by statistical testing, that specialization is more frequent than generalization.
The other argument is from phylogenetics. In phylogenetic trees, Tocharian consistently branches off second, after Anatolian. Again, this argument is based on lexical data, but from a completely different angle.
What about grammar? The arguments in favor of Tocharian to be second to branch off are complicated, in particular since they are dependent on which type of system we reconstruct for Proto-Indo-European. Without going too much into detail, we have two types of reconstrucitons, one relatively simple system, more similar to Anatolian, from which the other branches developed their system, and one more complex reconstruction, more similar to Sanskrit and Classical Greek, in which Anatolian lost most of its grammar. The position of Tocharian here is not clear. It is obvious that Tocharian rearranged and rebuilt most of its nominal - and partly also verbal - system, and this complicates the picture. The Tocharian reformation of the system was partly done by morphological material which is found in the other branches, partly Anatolian but also Old Indic and Classical Greek.
The enigma waits to be solved.
The other argument is from phylogenetics. In phylogenetic trees, Tocharian consistently branches off second, after Anatolian. Again, this argument is based on lexical data, but from a completely different angle.
What about grammar? The arguments in favor of Tocharian to be second to branch off are complicated, in particular since they are dependent on which type of system we reconstruct for Proto-Indo-European. Without going too much into detail, we have two types of reconstrucitons, one relatively simple system, more similar to Anatolian, from which the other branches developed their system, and one more complex reconstruction, more similar to Sanskrit and Classical Greek, in which Anatolian lost most of its grammar. The position of Tocharian here is not clear. It is obvious that Tocharian rearranged and rebuilt most of its nominal - and partly also verbal - system, and this complicates the picture. The Tocharian reformation of the system was partly done by morphological material which is found in the other branches, partly Anatolian but also Old Indic and Classical Greek.
The enigma waits to be solved.