From: Gevork Kherlopian
Message: 13305
Date: 2002-04-17
> 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 -----
> From: x99lynx@...
> To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
> 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.
>
>