Talk:Hittite grammar

removal of recent edits

There were a lot of uncited additions to this page recently which unfortunately I've had to remove after a failed attempt at salvaging them. While I think the addition of historical context is good in principle if cited thoroughly, the edits made were unfortunately not well written or researched. First, there were some obvious and confusing errors. For example the editor had invented the forms "antuḫšanz(a)" and "arunanz(a)" for the supposed ergative cases of the animate nouns antūwaḫḫaš and arunaš - but only inanimates can take the ergative. Ḫulanaš was listed under inanimate nouns, despite being an animate noun - something the editor should have noticed, because they derive ḫulanaš from a PIE feminine stem, not a neuter.

More importantly, the second issue is that the history of Hittite and Anatolian within IE is still a matter of some debate, and making sweeping statements about it, and using reconstructed forms and intermediate forms without citation or context, runs the risk of presenting disputed or outdated theories as fact. For example the recent edits repeat the old claim, without citation, that the feminine of PIE "collapsed" into the masculine to form the Anatolian animate noun class. Everything I've read on the topic suggests this is no longer the commonly held view within the field. Instead it is believed that Anatolian never had a feminine and that instead the feminine was an innovation of non-Anatolian IE (see https://linguistics.ucla.edu/people/Melchert/The%20Position%20of%20AnatolianRevised3.pdf). I really think this article should stick to a synchronic account of what is known for a fact about Hittite without getting into the diachronic weeds, especially without citation or context. Cyllel (talk) 02:05, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Amendment to the above, I noticed the error of the ergative form of antuhsas/antūwaḫḫaš was already present in the original form of the article and so can't be attributed to the recent edits, I apologize for that mistake. My other criticisms still stand, however. --Cyllel (talk) 02:39, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for taking on board my criticism, recent edits to this article have been amazing and much needed. --Cyllel (talk) 12:15, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]