Edited by Bridget Drinka
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 350] 2020
► pp. 49–64
Oblique-oblique case mergers are now known to be exceedingly rare outside Indo-European, yet very common within it (Baerman, Brown, and Corbett, 2001, 2005). Explanations of these mergers given after 2001 now need to include factors that are, individually or collectively, unique to Indo-European. In this paper, a set of such Indo-European specific factors is proposed, mainly phonological and prosodic, and its implications explored, particularly for the Germanic, Italic and Celtic families. We begin with Proto-Indo-European accent and ablaut morphology and PIE’s existing syncretism of the ablative case. Timelines and examples in Proto-Germanic help flesh out the explanation.