The Question of Italo-Celtic UnityAnthony D. YatesThe Italo-Celtic hypothesis, an Indo-European subgroup uniting Italic and Celticinto a single entity, has, since its inception in 1861 (Lottner

Kuhns Beiträge

2.309 ff.),sufficiently intrigued generations of scholars as to gain a kind of cyclical immortality.This sort of immortality is not without death; on the contrary, the theory has perishedmany times,

but has always been resurrected—including, notably, by Cowgill 1970 fromWatkins 1966.

The principal appeal of this and other theories of subgrouping lies in their contribution toward the resolution of a question fundamental in Indo-European studies, asframed by Watkins: “wie es eigentlich gewesen?” (1966: 29). An intermediate Italo-Celtic subgroup, existing in the vast temporal grey space between Proto-Indo-Europeanand its relevant end-points, i.e., the daughter languages of the separate Italic and Celticsubgroups, provides valuable insight as to the process.The hypothesis itself originated to explain several shared innovations between thetwo branches. To these, the principal criteria for linguistic subgrouping, Watkins wouldadd shared retentions and divergences as equally valid measures of linguisticverisimilitude—and rightly.

The principle evidence for Italo-Celtic unity is compiled byMeillet in his seminal work

Les dialectes indo-europeéns

(1908: 51-56), an essentially

Watkins 1966: 29 n.1 lists at least twelve such studies affirming or rejecting the hypothesis.

Cowgill employs a memorably grisly metaphor: “[I]n reopening the grave just closed by Watkins I havefound neither an empty coffin, nor a living adult prematurely buried, but a stillborn infant.” (And yet wewonder why linguists may not always be invited to parties.)

Although he draws very different conclusions from Watkins, Cowgill 1970:193 affirms the significance of these data-points.

exhaustive list of features common to Celtic and Italic alone. This list of seven items, as it provides the fundamental shape for later discourse, is reproduced here in an Appendix.

Items 2), 5b), 7), and 8) are dismissed in Watkins 1966. In the first, he cites a 1956study of J. Kurylowicz,

which shows that this development of IE. *r

, *l

is not unique toItalo-Celtic, but is common to a larger group including Greek and Armenian. Similarly,Watkins’ own earlier work

has proven the shared property 5b) to be a “historicalaccident:” the origins of the Celtic subjunctive in -

is a Celtic aorist indicative, whereasin Latin, an -

future). Item 7) he rejects on the grounds of incomparability of structuralcontexts; its development he regards as important only insofar as it represents a broader shared “negative” innovation

—viz. a limiting of the productivity of deverbative nouns.The final item is likewise disallowed, citing,

inter alia

, the general weakness of suchevidence, and the absence of Celtic cognates for Latin

ab, ante, apud, circum, ob, per,

and

prae

.The striking innovation of 3) remains unclear. It is not exclusively Italo-Celtic;Messapic too shows stems in -

with genitive singular in –

ihi

, supposed to be -

Watkins1966 notes significant variation in these forms in the various Indo-European languages,and so suggests the possibility that there was no original Indo-European form; innovationis thus to be expected, and the shared isogloss in Italic and Celtic may be due to contact.Items 1), 4), 5a), and 6) have been a source of significant disagreement. As to 4),4), Watkins is skeptical, citing the remarks of Kurylowicz (

op. cit

); in contrast, Cowgill

The Appendix provides easy reference (sc. detachable) to the individual items, which will be cited bynumber throughout this work.

L’apophonie en indo-europeén

166 ff. (Wroclaw, 1956)

Indo-European origins of the Celtic verb. I. The sigmatic aorist

(Dublin, 1962)

Watkins believes that “negative” innovations, properties of the proto-language that have been restricted or eliminated in its daughter languages, play an important role in subgrouping alongside the more commonlycited “positive” innovations.

emphatically concludes that the Celtic and Italic use of “

-r

as a voice marker pure andsimple IS an innovation,” comparing Hittite and Tocharian which use it primarily as atense marker (1970: 221). Watkins’ disputations of 1) and 5a) can essentially, withrespect to the views articulated by Cowgill, be reduced to problems of relativechronology. The debate on 1) focuses on Latin

quercus

, cognate with Celtic toponym

Ἑρκύνια

. The latter indicates that in Celtic the assimilation of

p…k

… k

occursafter the change of

, while the former, the opposite chronology. While Watkins believes that this is sufficient evidence for independent development,

Cowgill 1970: 191doubts its significance, certainly to the extent that it rules out a Italo-Celtic subgroup.Similarly for 5a), the major differences in the modal systems of Celtic and Italicidentified by Watkins 1966: 41-3 are, in the view of Cowgill, the result of secondarydivergence postdating the creation of

subjunctive ending. Finally, with regard to 6),Cowgill 1970 brilliantly demonstrates that the foremost problem advanced by Watkinswith Meillet’s original theory—viz. the existence of two separate superlative suffixes

*samo

and

*isamo

—is no problem at all: the suffixes can be reconciled to a single

*-ism

mo-

; hence, they are absolutely and entirely of their own kind, a unique innovationcommon to Celtic and Italic.Based on a consideration of this evidence, Watkins 1966 firmly rejects the notionof Italo-Celtic unity, concluding: “The only common language from which both Italic andCeltic can be derived is Indo-European itself” (43-44). Yet the same evidence has ledCowgill 1970 not just to posit unity, but to forward a plausible migratory theory toaccount for it. His theoretical model assumes an extreme western Italo-Celtic group

Watkins 1966: 34 draws additional support for this conclusion from a proposed derivation of

déac

from*

dwei-penk

Cowgill 1970: 191-2 n.1 disputes this derivation with good cause, favoring a derivation from*

dekan-os

, from which the OIr.

deec

by a metasthesized

*deankos