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How did Anatolian personal pronouns differ from those in other Indo-European languages?
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Anatolian languages
Distribution of the Anatolian languages.
Anatolian personal pronouns share recognizable stems with other Indo-European languages and maintain the characteristic use of distinct subject and nonsubject forms. However, they exhibit several distinct features and innovations:1
- First-person singular vowel: A unique characteristic of Anatolian is the use of a u vowel in the first-person singular, such as Hittite ūk ("I") and ammuk ("me").1
- Demonstrative stems: Anatolian languages developed an innovative demonstrative stem (e.g., abā- in Hittite, Palaic, and Luwian; ebe- in Lycian) that is also utilized as a personal pronoun for "he, she, it" in Lydian.1
- Enclitic elaboration: While the use of enclitic pronouns (unaccented pronouns attached to an accented word) exists in other older Indo-European languages, the Anatolian group significantly elaborated this system, often attaching them alongside other particles to the first accented word of a sentence.1