Re: [tied] Grimm and Verner

On Tue, 18 Dec 2001 16:14:29 +0100, "Piotr Gasiorowski"
<gpiotr@...> wrote:

>In my opinion the Armenian consonant shift and the less securely established Thracian shift are independent from, and probably much older than Grimm's Law (or at least than its final stages). I don't see how a common Latin/Greek shift could be defended -- the developments in Greek and Latin are only partly convergent.

More so if one considers the Osco-Umbrian situation as an intermediate
phase:

Grk MGrk Latin
PIE PItal OU
*bh > *ph > *f > *f(-) / *-B- (> -b-)
*dh > *th > *T > *f(-) / *-D- (> -d-)
*gh > *kh > *x > *h(-) / *-G- (> -h-, 0)
*gWh > *kWh > *xW > *f(-) / *-Gw- (> -w-)

>The typology of possible systems resulting from {dH, t, d[~]} is limited and pretty well exhausted by the attested IE developments; little wonder that different branches sometimes followed similar evolutionary paths.

But if the distributions form a geographical pattern, it would seem to
be more than random chance:

Gmc \\ Balt
Celt ... \\ Slav Iran
-------\ ... \\
Ital \ Thr \\ Alb Ind
Grk \ Arm \\


West of the thick line, we have:

(I) /th/, /t/, /d/;

east of it we have:

(II) /th/ < *tH
/t/ < *t
/dh/ < *dh
/d/ < *d

Subtype (Ia) has:
/th/ < *t,
/t/ < *d,
/d/ < *dh,

while (Ib) [Italo-Greek] has:
/th/ < *dh,
/t/ < *t,
/d/ < *d,

almost as if this were originally a branch of group (II), with
phonetics adpated to (I) [this would be consistent with an "Eastern"
superstrate].

>I'm sympathetic to the view that a fortis pronunciation of the voiceless series (I'll use the notation {t}) was characteristic of "Western IE" (Celtic, Italic and Germanic). One possibility is that both {dH} and {t} were pronounced with a spread glottis (as opposed to {d}). A spread glottis produces aspiration-like effects, and the resulting sound can easily change into a continuant. In Italic, spirantisation affected only the {dH} series (e.g. *dH > *D [*-D-/*T-] > *f-/*-d-/*-b-), and the {t} : {d} contrast was stabilised as [-/+ voice] rather than [+/- spread]. In Germanic, spirantisation ultimately affected the {dH, t} subsystem in most positions, while {d} ended up with unmarked phonation. In Celtic, there was at least allophonic spirantisation of both {dH} and {t} (leading, amont other things, to the erosion of *p > *f > *h > zero), whereas {d} merged with {dH} as {[d/D]}.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...