Re: [tied] Grimm and Verner

----- Original Message -----

From: Miguel Carrasquer Vidal

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2001 7:07 PM

Subject: Re: [tied] Grimm and Verner

> 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 \\

 

This representation is rather tendentious, especially as regards the location of Greek, Armenian and Albanian. Proto-Italic developed somewhere in Central Europe, east rather than south of Proto-Celtic. Proto-Hellenic and Proto-Armenian must have been located sufficiently close to Proto-Indo-Iranian to form a convergence area.

> 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,

There are many risky interpolations here. For example, why Italic {tH} from {dH}? All I can see there is fricatives with voiceless and voiced allophones.

 

It won't do to ascribe an Indic-style four-way system to every group east of the thick line, including Baltic and Slavic. Putative *x < *kH < *kh2 in Slavic is _very_ doubtful, and there's no evidence whatsoever for *tH or *pH there.

 

Piotr