Re: Satem shift

--- In cybalist@..., "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> wrote:

> --- In cybalist@..., tgpedersen@... wrote:
> > > --- In cybalist@..., tgpedersen@... wrote:
>
> > --- In cybalist@..., "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> wrote:
> > > What happened in Romance was not "satemisation" but someting

much

> > > more trivial -- palatalisation of velars before front vowels.

The

> > > Satemic shift does not depend on the phonetic environment (*k^
>
> > > palatal even before back vowels and consonants), and so is a
> > > different type of process, and Romance parallels are not very
> > > enlightening.
> > More trivial??
> > If satemisation is palatalisation before front vowels + then
> > regularisation of paradigms it would be pretty trivial too.
>
> Nope. Mere phonetic assimilation like [ke, ki] > [c^e, c^i] is
> something REALLY trivial (something like that has happened in
> countless languages the wide world over). The Satem change is a

more

> complex and less common type of change -- a unique systemic shift,

in

> which several phonemes are re-encoded in trems of distinctive
> features. This is not something that happens every now and then,

and

> should not be confused with common-or-garden positional
> palatalisation.
>
> Your "regularisation of paradigms" has nothing to do with either
> change. They are phonologivcal, not morphophonological.

Phonology and morphophonology may have different numbers in the Dewey
decimal system, but rules of either type have one thing in common:
they affect words.

> > But the whole raison d' for the *k-series, distinct from the *k'
> and
> > *kW, apart from the inconclusive Albanian evidence, was that they
> > went *s in some satem-languages and *k in others? Which is

exactly

> > what you would expect with a sloppy pre-literate generalisation?
>
> I don't think you understand the Satem developments. The *k series
> did not change into sibilants anywhere.

I don't think you understood what I'm saying. The *k-series does not
change into sibilants anywhere because it was posited to account for
the cases where centum -k- corresponds to satem -k-. Arguing for the
reason d' of something assuming the existence of that something is
called begging the question, and that's what you're doing here.

>The reason why we reconstruct
> *k as distinct from *k^ and *kW is that some instances of Satem *k
> correspond to *k, not *kW, outside the Satem group. There are some
> more recently discovered "triple reflexes" of the three series
> in "centum" languages; perhaps the most convincing case is Latin
> (Schrijver 1991, discussed here ca. 3500 messages ago).

I checked the discussion, and you didn't seem much convinced then,
but you are now?

> Piotr

Since you didn't understand it the first time, I'll be nice and
explain again my idea of how VASTLY, ENORMOUSLY banal, trivial
palatalisation, and after that paradigm regularisation might account
for the centum/satem phenomenon.

In the followig, WLG (without loss of generality) let k stand for k,
g, gh (pre-glottalic theory).

Assume we have two k-series: *k and *kW
Most word are inflected in PIE. As to vowel, they can have e-grade, o-
grade and zero grade (I'll leave out the extended grades; the
important thing here is the front/back feature). So we have in a
paradigm:

CeC-
CoC-
CC-

or, in the case the first is a velar stop:

keC-
koC-
kC-

which becomes, by palatalisation

c^eC-
koC-
kC-

Suddenly, social upheaval. The word-smiths and druids are killed (or
they fall out over some grammatical or other silly question; other,
more serious reasons are of course more likely). Two groups arise.
One generalizes the /k/. They are centum people.

keC-
koC-
kC-

Another generalizes the /c^/. They are satem people:

c^eC-
c^oC-
c^C-

And they take the c^ futher down the road towards s^ and s.

But, as Piotr pointed out, in a pre-literate society these processes
cannot be carried out to perfection. So in some cases the satem-
people generalize the wrong way, faultily:

keC-
koC-
kC-

After this, the satem people have very few k's left. So they are free
to go *kW > *k.

Enter the linguist. What does he find?
The "correct" correspondence

centum satem
k- s-

the "faulty" correspondence

centum satem
k- k-

and the kW correspondence

centum satem
kW- k-

What does he do? He posits three *k-series: *k', palatal, k^ plain
and kW labiovelar, while fretting over why it is that the k- k-
correspondence varies in extent in Baltic and Slavic.

But there needs only have been two k-series in the beginning, as I
have demonstrated.

Torsten