The classical picture of PIE had relied heavily on (Homeric) Greek and (Vedic) Sanskrit, the earliest IE languages known in the nineteenth century. The Neogrammarian consensus was shattered by the decipherment of Hittite and the demonstration that it was an IE language (1915-17). Little attention was paid to a competing reconstruction of PIE, due primarily to Ferdinand de Saussure, which eliminated the voiceless aspirated stops and simplified the description of ablaut by positing three additional consonants, later known as "laryngeals." There was also a rich morphology, largely dependent on suffixation and ablaut ( = morpheme-internal vowel alternation). The Neogrammarian model posited a large PIE consonant system, with four classes of stops (voiceless (e.g., *t), voiced ( *d), voiceless aspirated ( *th), voiced aspirated ( *dh)) distributed over five articulatory positions (labial (e.g., *p), dental ( *t), palatal ( *k ´), velar ( *k), labiovelar ( *k w)). Using the comparative method, late nineteenth and early twentieth century scholars - the "Neogrammarians" - produced a remarkably detailed picture of the IE parent language. Tocharian, consisting of two languages (Tocharian A and B) known from archaeological sites on the Silk Road, in the Chinese province of XinjiangĪlso Indo-European, but not assignable to any of the above branches, are Phrygian (Asia Minor), Messapic (SE Italy), and a number of other poorly attested languages of antiquity, some of which are known from only a few words.Anatolian, including Hittite, Luvian, Lydian, and other languages of ancient Asia Minor.The last two are often regarded as subbranches of a single branch, Balto-Slavic. Slavic, including the early medieval language Old Church Slavonic and the modern Slavic languages (Russian, Polish, Czech, etc.).Baltic, including Lithuanian, Latvian, and the extinct Old Prussian.Germanic, including Gothic (extinct) and the medieval and modern forms of English, German, Dutch, and the Scandinavian languages.Celtic, including the medieval and modern Goidelic (Old and Modern Irish, Scots Gaelic, etc.) and Brittonic languages (Welsh, Breton, etc.).
Italic, including Latin and its ancient relatives (Oscan, Umbrian, etc.), along with the Romance descendants of Latin (French, Italian, Spanish, etc.).Greek, with numerous ancient and modern dialects.Armenian, in both classical and modern forms.Indo-Iranian, including Indic or Indo-Aryan (Sanskrit and the modern Indo-Aryan languages (Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, etc.) and Iranian (Avestan, Old Persian, and the modern Iranian languages (Persian (Farsi), Pashto, Kurdish, etc.)).The living branches, in clockwise order from east to west, are The participles take the tense suffix -σα- the active participle is declined like ἅπᾱς ( 162), the middle is regular in the vowel declension.The IE family has ten or eleven major branches, two of which are extinct. The infinitive takes -σαι in the active (irregularly) for combined tense suffix and ending, and always accents the penult (contrary to 249).Ģ86. The imperative takes the tense suffix -σα- but -σον in the active second singular and -σαι in the middle second singular stand irregularly for the combined tense suffix and ending.Ģ85.
But in the active the forms with -σε- and -ια- (2nd singular and 3rd plural) or -ιε- (3rd singular) are more common. The optative contracts the tense suffix -σα- with the mode suffix -ι- ( -ιε- in the third plural active). The subjunctive has the combined tense and mode suffix -σω:η-, and is inflected like the subjunctive present.Ģ83. The indicative takes the augment ( 264 and 265) and the secondary endings ( 263) in the third singular active the tense suffix is -σε. The aorist stem is formed by adding to the verb-stem the suffix -σα:ε-, which becomes -σω:η- in the subjunctive (sigmatic or σα- aorist).Ģ81. This includes an indicative, subjunctive, optative, imperative, with infinitive and participle, active and middle.