--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, mkapovic@... wrote:
> > So the anomalous languages are Albanian, Luwian and Aremenian, all on
> > the southern fringe of the satem area, in which the merger *kW > *k
> > did not occur immediately.
>
> Sorry, Richard, but I seem to have missed the point... :-/ Could you
> elaborate?
Geography:
I don't think Albanian and Armenian need any elaboration. For
Anatolia, I see the geographical connection between Anatolian and
Indo-European proper as being across the Bosporus. The precise
location of the interface is, I think unclear. However, it is the
West of Anatolia that connects with south of the area of IE proper.
It is possible that there may not have been a connection - Phrygian
and possibly Tyrrhenian complicate the picture. Phrygian is a
langauge of uncertain satemisation - perhaps it got only as far as
Stage 1 below.
Dialect Geography:
As I understand it, sound changes are not necessarily restricted to
languages, but may spread across to neighbouring languages. A large
scale example is the loss of voicing contrasts which has swept through
much of China and mainland SE Asia (typical giving tone splits, but
sometimes merely a register distinction), though there are various
hold-outs - some Yi dialects have resisted it, and it is only now
affecting the Li language of Hainan.
Satem Development:
Three basic stages:
1. *k^ [k] palatalises [c]?, [k^].
2. *kW > k, merging with PIE *k. However, other changes may bleed
this development, leading to the divergent development in Albanian and
Armenian. There is nothing striking about this development if
previous [k] has been depeleted - consider the developments of Romance
[kw] to /k/ in French and Spanish. The change may not need such a
motivation - such a simplification in Farsi as opposed to Daric
Perisan may not have had such a motivation.
3. [c] or [k^] affricates.
I am not sure that we actually know the relative order of stages 2 and 3.
Thesis:
Stage 1 occurred over a wider area than Stage 2. In particular, Stage
2 did not extend to the far south of the are affected by Stage 1.
Stage 2 may have occurred independently significantly later - after
other changes had bled it.
Thought: Was Stage 2 (generally merger of *kW and *k) actually a
connected phenomenon? Parallel developments seems quite common.
Richard.