Luwic Stress: Uncovering word accent in an extinct language family

While the literature on the Hittite accent is plentiful, the prosodic systems of the non-Hittite Anatolian languages have received little attention. In this lecture, Oscar Billing presents some findings from his doctoral dissertation on word accent in Luwian, Lycian, and Lydian. Various methods are proposed for locating the accent in the different languages, followed by an example of how these methods can be used to improve our understanding of Anatolian linguistic history. Moreover, the typological profile of the accent systems in Luwian, Lycian, and Lydian, as well as their most recent common ancestor, is discussed.