Dissertation
Studies in Tocharian verbal morphology relevant to the cladistic position of Tocharian in Indo-European
On the 24th of September, Louise S. Friis successfully defended a doctoral thesis. Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Louise on this achievement!
- Author
- Louise S. Friis
- Date
- 24 September 2024
- Links
- Leiden University Repository
In recent years, the hypothesis that Tocharian was the second branch to separate from the Indo-European family tree has become very common in the literature. The position of Tocharian in the family tree is important, not only for our diachronic understanding of the linguistic features of Tocharian, but also for our understanding of the prehistoric speakers of the Tocharian languages, as early linguistic separation may be used as evidence for early geographical separation. It is important to note, however, that there is very little agreement among scholars about which evidence to accept as decisive. This dissertation investigates the hypothesis that Tocharian was the second branch on the tree with a focus on the evidence from the realm of verbal morphology. Through Inner-Tocharian and comparative diachronic analyses, the thesis argues that most the proposed evidence cannot be upheld as decisive. While some Tocharian archaisms remain plausible, the status of the Tocharian Second hypothesis is more precarious than usually assumed.