Re: [tied] PIE dorsals

On Thu, 7 Dec 2000 00:09:10 +0100, "Piotr Gasiorowski"
<gpiotr@...> wrote:

>Let me begin by listing the most powerful arguments against the classic Brugmannian aproach.
>
>(1) No IE language preserves contrastive reflexes of all the three series. This suggests that the ‘K-overlap’ (Satem *K and Kentum *K in the same root) may represent a neutralisation zone between two original series.
>
>(2) In a system with three dorsal articulations the ‘neutral’ (unmarked) one (*K) should be at least as common as any of the complex (marked) ones. This is a general property of natural classes of phonemes, and any violation of it should be commented on and, if possible, accounted for. But in PIE the *K series (across phonation types) is definitely the rarest, and many of the examples of *k, *g and *gH cited in the literature are too doubtful for profitable discussion. In the basic vocabulary *K^ and *KW are overwhelmingly more common. For example, *k^ occurs in the words for 6, 8 and 10 (not to mention the decads and 100), *kW in 4 and 5, whereas no number words contain *k.
>
>(3) In the Satem languages there is a good deal of variation between *K and *$. Even in Indo-Iranian *K for expected *$ is sometimes found, and in Balto-Slavic non-satemised *K is very common. The opposite (*$ for expected *K) is virtually impossible for purely technical reasons. There is a bias in the Brugmannian reconstruction: anything that has a *$ reflex in any Satem language is automatically assigned to the *K^ set. One should note, however, that the contrast between *K^ and *KW in Satem is disturbed unidirectionally: some instances of PIE *K^ are reflected as *K, but PIE *KW never emerges as *$. To sum up, the boundary between *K and *K^ is fuzzy, while the *KW lexical set preserves its integrity in th Satem languages.
>Possible counterarguments:
>
>(ad 1) It has been claimed that Albanian and Luwian retain the three-way contrast in some positions.

The Albanian data I've never found particularly convincing, and the
Luwian evidence is new to me (I just saw it a couple of days ago),
although it looks good. <za-> < *k^o- is difficult to explain away.

The main objection I have (ad 1) is that in my opinion it's not a
valid argument against K/K^/Kw at all. Why should the 3-way
distinction have had to be preserved *somewhere* for it to have been
real? Examples abound of cases where none of the daughter languages
maintain a 3-way contrast in the parent language, but the different
ways in which the reflexes have merged (A B C -> A+B C or A B+C or A+C
B) show the old contrasts. As an example I can give the reflexes of
Latin /o:/, /u/ and /u:/, reflected as /o/ and /u/ in modern Romance
(but Sard/Romanian /o/ < /o:/ and /u/ < /u/ + /u:/, while the rest of
Romance has /o/ < /o:/ + /u/ vs. /u/ < /u:/).

>(ad 2) I’ve never seen a convincing counterargument.

Actually, your (3) is one. "There is a bias in the Brugmannian
reconstruction: anything that has a *$ reflex in any Satem language is
automatically assigned to the *K^ set."

>(ad 3) If we lump *K^ and *K together, how shall we account for the stable *K that occurs in a number of roots (e.g. *kr(e)uh2- ‘blood; raw meat’: Latin cruor, Old English hre:aw, Greek kreas, Sanskrit kravis.-, Old Polish kry, etc.)?
>
>There are some loose regularities here. *K tends to occur before non-syllabic *r (in Baltic also before *l) both word-initially and medially. Indo-Iranian and Armenian introduce $ where there is analogical support for it, but retain *K otherwise (cf. Middle English kerven ‘carve’ < OE c^eorfan [tSe@...] influenced by pret.pl. curfon [kurvon], pp. corfen [korven]). Balt-Slavic languages have uniform *Kr. I’d like to suggest that non-palatal *K is also the normal Satem reflex before *h2 [x] as in *dHugh2ter-, and probably after *s.

Undoubtedly, in some environments (in some languages), the opposition
betwen *K and *K^ is neutralized. So is, in some environments (in
some langages), but to a lesser degree, the opposition between *K and
*Kw, but that doesn't mean we should consider them positional
allophones of a single phoneme (although it's of course easy, perhaps
unavoidable, to think that, historically, *K and *Kw (and *K^) must
all have a common origin).

I do not deny that in the satem area the boundary between *K and *K^
becomes fuzzy. But it does not follow that this reflects a split of
*K into *K^ (normal development) and *K (in "blocking environments"
etc.). It can also mean a near-merger between *K^ and *K (with *K^
swallowing up large portions of earlier *K, esp. in I-I).

The number of cases where, even in I-I, one finds "unmotivated" *K (no
*r following, etc.) is high enough for me to prefer the latter option.
Hell, I've even gone so far as claiming that the loss of the
distinction between *K, *K^ and *Kw is nothing but the final stage of
a process whereby a three-way split in quality of *all* consonants was
gradually lost in pre-PIE.

>Only *K is found in suffixes such as *-(i)k- and *-(i)sk- presumably because only the ‘basic’ velar was allowed in word-forming suffixes already in PIE and suffixal *-k- did not contrast with *-kW-. In many words (especially in Balto-Slavic) apparent ‘dispalatalisation’ must be due to lexical borrowing from Centum languages. My favourite example of a similar phenomenon is the ‘restoration’ of formerly palatalised velars in English words like egg, get, give, score, etc., thanks to Old Norse influence. This would easily account for a number of cases like Slavic *goNsI- (*gansi-) ‘goose’ vs. Baltic *z^ansi-.

My favourite example of 'dispalatalisation' (although it is not
relevant to the matter at hand, because it was unconditional) is
Egyptian Arabic /g/ < Common Arabic /j/ (probably a voiced palatal
stop /g^/ ~ /d^/, like Magyar <gy>) < Common Semitic /g/. Come to
think of it, it may be relevant to the supposed unparsimoniousness of
centum *k^ > *k.

>What can’t be defended is *ok^to: < **okito: as proposed by Szemerényi. There is no independent evidence of syncope in such words; besides, Satem *$ is too frequent in environments where palatalisation caused by front vowels can be ruled out. It must be concluded that the Satem palatalisation was not restricted to a particular context (although it was blocked in some environments). Such a shift is hardly the usual thing that happens to velars, but fortunately the Satem grouping (as opposed to Centum) has always been geographically cohesive (I’d also argue that it’s possibly monophyletic)

I won't go into that one...

> and it’s quite possible that ‘Satemisation’ was a single event rather than a number of independent developments in several branches.
>
>My preferred scenario is therefore as follows:
>
>THE SATEM SHIFT
>
>PIE *K > Satem *$ (except in blocking environments, where *K is retained)
>
>PIE *KW > Satem *K
>
>... while Centum languages simply preserve the PIE state of things.

Just in case I wasn't clear enough, I'll state again that these
"blocking environments" are far too ill-defined ("loose") for my
taste.

And I'll add that a three-way distinction between palatalized, plain
and labialized/velarized consonants is in no way typologically
implausible, although it would seem to be diachronically instable (and
thus not terribly common). A good example is Old Irish, where besides
the well-known "broad" and "slender" (palatalized) consonant
qualities, there was also "u-colouring" (labio-velarization), caused
by (formerly) following *u or *u:. Even in the oldest Old Irish
glosses, "u-quality" was losing ground to "neutral quality" (maybe it
was more of a merger, given the velarized quality of the Gaelic
"broad" consonants). The same may have happened in Slavic, where the
loss of the yers <I> and <U> may have initially resulted in (the
phonologization of) three consonant qualities, later resolved into two
(palatalized vs. plain [though often labio-velarized, especially /l/])
or even back to one in modern Slavic languages.


=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...