Proto-Tocharian, Common Tocharian, and Tocharian - on the value of linguistic connections in a reconstructed language

In: Jones-Bley, Karlene et al. (Eds.). Proceedings of the Sixteenth Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference: Los Angeles, November 5–6, 2004. Institute for the Study of Man.: Washington (D.C.) (JIES Monogr. 50). — pp. 47-71.In this paper, some linguistic evidence for the positioning of Pre-, Proto- and Common Tocharian in time and space will be taken into account. The approaches have basically been selected in order to argue that the two Tocharian languages, Tocharian A and B, split up at a relatively late date, probably as late as the 1th century AD, after a long period of continuous linguistic change apart from the Indo-European language continuum. Finally, consequences and problems connected with these assumptions will be discussed.