Adjectival typology in four ancient Indo-European languages

In some recent works, a new functional-typological definition of parts of speech based on Croft’s PoS theory has been proposed and applied to three ancient IE languages, namely RV Sanskrit, Homeric Greek and Latin. The results were promising. While the NOUN and the VERB constructions are similar in each language, the most typical ADJECTIVE construction turned out to be a simple adjective stem in Latin, but a derived stem built on a verbal root in RV Sanskrit (that is, a participle or a deverbal adjective), Homeric Greek being intermediate between the two extremes. This being so, a typological change has been claimed to have come about in the Indo-European family, namely the change from a language “without adjectives” or, more precisely, with two major classes of simple lexical items (nouns and verbal roots) to a language “with adjectives” or with three major classes of primary lexical items (nouns, verbs and adjectives). The present paper aims to evaluate the claim in the light of Hittite data. A sample of Hittite texts is thus collected, all the ADJECTIVE constructions in the sample are gathered, and their morphemic structure is analysed and evaluated quantitatively. It turns out that the Hittite data fit perfectly in the above change, Hittite adjectival typology being intermediate between that in Latin and that in RV Sanskrit, not unlike the case of Homeric Greek.