Re: Volcae and Volsci

On Sat, 29 Mar 2008 11:18:24 -0000, "tgpedersen"
<tgpedersen@...> wrote:

>--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal <miguelc@...>
>wrote:
>>
>> On Sat, 29 Mar 2008 02:57:16 -0000, "tgpedersen"
>> <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >> The fact that the law (Kluge's, I mean) worked in exactly
>> >> the same way in Germanic (also in pretonic position only)
>> >> makes it all the more plausible that the same conditioning
>> >> applied in Celtic. In fact, I find it very hard to avoid
>> >> thinking that it is the _same_ law in both Germanic and
>> >> Celtic.
>> >
>> >Hm. What does that mean? That it applied alike in two separate
>> >language branches, that it applied in a common Celtic-Germanic
>> >prestage (I'm not aware there is one), or that it applied in some
>> >language which became substratal to both Celtic and Germanic?
>>
>> That it, like, say, the satem shift, applied across several
>> neighbouring, but already differentiated, Indo-European
>> dialects.
>>
>
>Which means you end up with the linguistic equivalent of the EPR
>paradox.

I can't imagine why. There is no paradox, and the whole
thing (which boils down to 'Wellentheorie') is _based_ on
the principle of locality.

Sounds shifts can and have spread across dialects, and even
across completely different languages (the cause célèbre
being the spread of uvular [R] across large parts of
Europe).

>That's exactly why I don't like the idea of the satem shift,
>but prefer to see PIE stops as phonemes with context-dependent
>allophones, the palatals were *c^e/ko/xt, the labiovelars
>*ke/kWo/ft(xt) and the plains *ke/ko/kt, since they occurred in
>imported words.

The facts are that we do have *ke/*ko, *k^e/*k^o and
*kWe/*kWo, and that the *k/*g/*gh series occurs abundantly
in native words and suffixes.

>And you'd probably have to bring in extra-linguistic
>factors such as the presence of a substrate anyway, to explain why
>exactly those languages participated and the rest didn't.

Whatever for? All you need is geography. Kluge's law was a
shared isogloss that spread over the Celtic and Germanic
areas. You can add your Nordwestblock, if you like.


=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
miguelc@...