Re[2]: [tied] Reference

At 3:12:25 PM on Monday, February 24, 2003, P&G wrote:

>> Well, what I meant is not that I mind long explanations
>> of whys, but I can't find any works that are not
>> extremely specialised in nature, ..

> Piotr has mentioned -and warned you about - Szemerenyi,
> which is (a) out of line with the developing consensus in
> a few ways (b) extremely reliable (c) full, detailed, and
> complex. Becasue of teh last point, it might not be what
> you want.

> Could I suggest instead any book which has an introductory
> chapter on PIE? This might give you a quicker and less
> detailed overview of the subject. There's a 7-page version
> in Baldi "An introduction to the IE languages" (Sth
> Illinois U Press 1983), but this might be too small.
> Beekes "Comparative IE LInguistics" has several chapters
> (about 130 pages) and this might be too much - though it's
> still shorter than Szemerenyi.

There's about a 40-page chapter by Bammesberger in the first
volume of the Cambridge History of the English Language.
Its title is 'The place of English in Germanic and
Indo-European', and it does indeed focus on Germanic
developments, but it does include a decent summary of
PIE. Chapter 5 of Lass's _Old English; A Historical
Linguistic Companion_ is called 'Ablaut, the laryngeal(s)
and the IE root'; it's a short but very readable treatment
of exactly that.

Brian