--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski
<piotr.gasiorowski@...> wrote:
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>
>
>
> > P: There is no such price attached to the traditional formulation
of VL. It's satisfactory as it is.
> >
> > T: Different strokes for different folks. At least I don't
hypostatize my personal opinions to communis opinio.
>
> That _is_ the general opinion of linguists -- ask anyone and tell
me who disagrees. I have no personal reason to prefer the orthodox
version of VL. Simplicity and elegance WITHOUT any extra cost have
made it remain attractive ever since Karl Verner formulated it that
way. If you find it unsatisfactory, may I know why?
>
> > People would disagree here. And I'm afraid you're up against
greater minds than mine. I didn't invent the glottalic theory and
there are people who push it indendently of my 'Tungri' proposal.
>
> It's still demonstrably untenable for pre-Germanic (the way Theo
Vennemann wanted to reformulate Grimm's Law), and the version
popularised by Gamkrelidze and Ivanov doesn't even work for PIE.
Judging from its appearance in publications, the glottalic theory is
already past its heyday. A less ambitious version may have some value
for discussing the origin of the "labial gap" in the PIE stop system,
the morpheme structure constraints prohibiting roots like *bed-,
etc., but -- and here I agree with Jens, Glen and Miguel --
glottalisation was a pre-PIE phenomenon.
>
I'm not up to date on the status of the glottalsation theory. Why
doesn't it work for Grimm's law, and why doesn't G & I's version work
for PIE? Early reports seemed so optimistic.
Torsten