Features
Hittite morphology is simpler than other older Indo-European languages. Some Indo-European characteristics seem to have disappeared in Hittite, and other IE language branches had developed different innovations. Hittite contains a number of archaisms that have disappeared from other IE languages. Notably, Hittite has no gender system which distinguishes masculine and feminine; instead, it exhibits a noun-class system that is based upon an older animate/inanimate distinction. It should be noted, however, that the masculine/feminine distinction is still a matter of dispute, since there are some, such Robert S. P. Beekes, who doubt that the feminine gender originated in PIE languages. ("Indo-European Linguistics" 13.2.3)
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