Italo-Celtic Origins and Prehistoric Development of the Irish Language

Review of Klein (2006): The Collected Writings of Warren Cowgill

“…Again, limiting the discussion here to the third person, by the late sixties a number of scholars had begun to argue that the 3sg thematic ending was not *bhere-t-i, but simply *bher-e. Support for this t-less third singular came from forms like Old Irish ·beir and Greek p h érei (see Watkins 1969: passim, but see especially 105-106, cf. also Kortlandt 1979Kortlandt [= 2007, whom C also cites). C's derivation of Old Irish ·beir directly from *bher-e-ti eliminated a crucial peg underpinning this analysis.…”

On the homonymy of ‘put’ and ‘suck’ in Proto-Indo-European

“…Monosyllabic forms of the root aorist developed suffixal -k- (Kortlandt 2007(Kortlandt , 2018 which spread to the remaining perfect forms of Italic (Latin fēcī, Venetic 3sg. preterite vhagsto 'made' , Oscan 3sg.…”

Suppletion and its relevance to the IE family-tree

“…Within Indo-European linguistics, several attempts have been made to prove closer relation between two or more branches and establish sub-groups or areas. Yet, even for Italic and Celtic, where shared innovations are numerous and sometimes unique, it has been so far impossible to persuade the majority that positing Italo-Celtic, as a separate branch, is necessary, indeed -unavoidable (attempts such as Kortlandt 2007 are in the minority). This may, in the end, be also a matter of inertia and -also -in many respects the existence or not of Italo-Celtic does not exert much influence on the step by step decisions done routinely in reconstructing their prehistory.…”