Re: Grimm ’s Law fact or myth: Gessman (1990)

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "mkelkar2003" <swatimkelkar@...> wrote:

> See Grimm's law fact or myth.pdf in the files section.


> "Whichever the development may have been, we can see one thing
> clearly. Grimm's Law, the `Germanic Consonant Shift," has evaporated.
> The Proto-Aryan basis on which it had been predicated has vanished
> (Gessman 1990, p.12)."

His 'demolition' argument seems to be that *t > /þ/ cannot have
induced *d > /t/ because after the first stage [t] survived in
clusters such as /st/, /ft/ and /xt/. So, pray tell me, how did the
High German consonant shift happen? (Pretty much the same clusters
survive from Proto-Germanic in Old High German, except that /st/ has
generally become /St/.)

Incidentally, what is the evidence that Germanic did not have *st > sþ

> st, *pt > fþ > ft and *kt > *xþ > *xt? Dissimilation of fricatives

is a synchronic rule in Old English.

Richard.