The roots of Tocharian Michaël Peyrot, Berlin

The roots of Tocharian
Michaël Peyrot, Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften
In this talk, I will investigate the roots of Tocharian. Based on a review of arguments from phonology,
morphology and syntax, I will try to distinguish between elements deriving from Proto-Indo-European on the
one hand and elements that define the Indo-European language Tocharian as it is attested on the other. This
question could also be formulated as: “what is it that makes Tocharian Tocharian?” Although the defining traits
of Tocharian may in part be and have in the past usually been explained as natural linguistic developments
without external cause, it will be shown that a search for possible external influences is nevertheless worthwhile.
Inasfar as developments in a language cannot be explained from prestages of the same linguistic lineage alone, it
can be argued that its roots are diverse. I will argue that this is true of Tocharian, as it is of so many other
languages. An important part of the paper will be dealing with arguments based on structural features, but exact
identifications of the diverse roots of Tocharian will be attempted on the basis of the lexicon, by means of
etymologies of individual words and roots.

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