Piotr-

Piotr, I apologize if I'm being a nuiscance, as I am pretty un-educated,
but I'm confused now,

Are you using the term proto-Germanic synonymously with proto-Indo
European? Because you seem to be saying that all IE languages came from
Proto-Germanic, but then how is Proto-Germanic different from IE? Or is
Proto-Germanic a branch of IE along with other branches such as
proto-Celtic, etc., that in turn branched into pre-Germanic, pre-Celtic,
etc.?

-Michael

On Wed, 27 Aug 2003 22:26:45 +0200 Piotr Gasiorowski
<piotr.gasiorowski@...> writes:

> 27-08-03 19:22, Michael wrote:
>
> > Why is the 1st Germanic sound shift so essential in defining
> Germanic
> > as distinct from proto-Germanic? Couldn't it just be thought of
> as
> > one stage in the development of Germanic rather than marking the
> > distinction between the newly emerged Germanic from
> proto-Germanic?
> > Is the consonant shift the only feature to distinguish the two?
>
> Not Germanic from proto-Germanic, but pre-Germanic (and the whole
> rest
> of IE) from Proto-Germanic and its descendants (including the
> historically known Germanic languages). It's one of several
> innovations
> that are the Germanic "autoapomorphies" (derived features found only
> in
> that branch) and that _define_ Germanic within IE.
>
> By definition, Proto-Germanic is the _most recent_ common ancestor
> of
> all the documented Germanic languages (e.g. Wulfila's Gothic, Old
> Norse,
> English, German, etc.). As such, it represents the stage postdating
> (and
> reflecting) all the common Germanic innovations, e.g. the uniquely
> Germanic development of syllabic liquids and nasals, Grimm's Law,
> Verner's Law, the rule of initial stress and some other phonological
>
> changes, as well as a number of grammatical and lexical innovations.
> On
> the other hand, it predates any innovations not found in all the
> Germanic languages (e.g. rhotacism, various types of umlaut, loss of
>
> unstressed syllables).
>
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