It's a handbook example of synchronic rule
reformulation _after_ the historical operation of the sound change(s) that the
rule in question corresponds to.
Bartholomae's Law turns the sequence
[breathy voiced] + [voiceless] into assimilated [breathy voiced] + [breathy
voiced], e.g. *-bH + t- > *-bHdH- (> Skt. -bdH-) or *-dH + s- > *-dHzH-
(in Proto-Indo-Iranian sibilants could be breathy voiced too).
Grassmann's Law consists in the
dissimilation ([+ aspirated] > [- aspirated]) of any occurrence of aspiration
if followed by another occurrence of the same in the same root-size domain in a
contiguous syllable, e.g. *bHudH-je-toi > budHyate.
Grassmann's Law is younger than
Bartholomae's, but it interacts with some phonological processes in an
apparently paradoxical manner. In pre-Vedic times *zH and *z^H (produced by
Bartholomae's Law) were "deaspirated" into Indo-Aryan s and s., and any
preceding obstruent became voiceless (as well as deaspirated) by assimilation:
*-gHz^H- > -ks.-, *-dHzH- > -ts-, *-bHzH- > *-ps-. This change obscured
locally the operation of Bartholomae's _and_ Grassmann's Laws, since it removed
the features that had originally triggered them. One would expect to get
historical derivations like the following:
*bHeudH-s-je-ti
*bHaudHzHyati (BL)
*baudHzHyati (GL)
botsyati (deaspiration and
devoicing)
or
*h1e dHugH-s-e-t
*adHugHz^Hat (BL)
*adugHz^Hat (GL)
aduks.at (deaspiration and
devoicing)
Such or similar forms are indeed found in
the earliest and most archaising layer of Vedic grammar, but the already
productive Vedic type (and the only possible one in later Sanskrit) was
<bHotsyati, adHuks.at>. This "modernising" type owes its
existence to the analogy of forms like the root noun *bHudH-s, where the loss of
phonation contrasts in word-final clusters produced *bHuts (> Skt. bHut)
prior to Bartholomae's Law. By the time of S'a:kalya (let alone Pa:n.ini) the
new forms were so well entrenched in Sanskrit that in S'a:kalya's
<padapa:t.Ha> to the Rigveda they are regularly substituted for the
archaic ones even where the latter occur in the text.
The synchronic grammatical rule needed to
account for the output of Grassmann's Law was reformulated as "aspirate
throwback" (Hock's term) rather than the dissimilation of an underlying pair of
aspirates; accordingly, the underlying form of the root was reanalysed as well:
/budH-/ --> [bHut-]/[bHud-] instead of earlier (and diachronically
correct) /bHudH-/ --> [budH-]/[bHut-]/[but-] in the right environments.
In the restructured system there is no place for the allomorph [but-], and only
[bHut-] can be derived with the new rules, more or less along these
lines:
/budH+s/ /bu-budH+s+a-/
/baudH+s+ya-/
bHuds
bubHudsa- bHodsya- (aspirate
throwback)
bHuts bubHutsa- bHotsya- (voice
assimilation)
bHut --------- -------- (final
simplification)
"Generalised aspirate throwback" applies
also when historical breathy voiced stops are deaspirated in clusters such
as *-gHdH- > *-gdH-, e.g. in Skt. dHug-bHiH reflecting
*dHugH-bHis (like dHuk < *dHugH-s) vs. duh-aH < *dHugH-os,
synchronically all derived from underlying /dugH-/. This means that Grassmann's
law and a variety of deaspiration processes are compressed into a single
synchronic rule. There is no throwback, hoewever, in forms like buddHa <
*bHudH-to-, where Bartholomae's Law operates transparently (but it doesn't
apply to stop+s clusters synchronically).
/budH+ta-/ /dugH+bHis/
buddHa- --------- (BL
[synchronic])
-------
dHug-bHis (aspirate throwback)
If we retained /bHudH-/ as the underlying
form, we'd get the illusion of Grassmann's Law operating before Bartholomae's:
/bHudH-ta-/ --> budHta --> [buddHa-]. This, I suppose, is the paradox
that Peter had in mind. The source of the paradox is the fact that the
synchronic rules are subtly different from their historical models. The actual
development was *bHudH-to- > *bHudHdHa- > *budHdHa- > buddHa-
(phonologically regular).
I have omitted some details for the sake of
clarity (please don't laugh), but I hope you can see what the moral is: rule
reordering obliterates the fingerprints of the diachronically underlying
changes. If we had no evidence of the
older system and no comparative data from outside Indo-Aryan, and if we
could only rely on the application of internal reconstruction to the
"modernising" forms (the only grammatical ones in the classical language),
Grassmann's Law and its interaction with other obstruent changes in pre-Vedic
would be reconstructed incorrectly.
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, April 16, 2002 10:47 PM
Subject: [tied] Bartholomae's Law and Grassman's Law
"P&G" <petegray@......> writes:
<<For me, the
major phonetic problem in Sanskrit is reconciling Bartholomae's
Law and
Grassman's Law, both of which are needed, but each of which implies a
different order of events.>>
Peter- if you have the time -
could you explain how you understand the two
laws "imply" two different
orders of events? I've heard this before but
don't understand how this
conflict is detected. I don't think you are saying
there are specific
Sanskrit words where Bartholomae-type permutations show
erratic
chronological occurence, i.e., before or after Grassman (aspirated
consonants lose their aspiration if followed by an aspirated consonant) in
the order in which they happened - I don't think. I don't follow how
the
implied chronology can be different for the two
laws.