Re: [tied] Re: Germanic Scythians?

From: P&G
Message: 20336
Date: 2003-03-25

> Producing the same change in several branches independently?
> It doesn't matter much what triggered the change; as long as
> it's independent in the several branches, elementary
> probability theory will tell you that it's unlikely.

And yet elementary linguistics tells you that in well attested cases, it has
happened. Greek, I-I and Italic all seem to have maintained laryngeals at a
time when they were separate, and all lost them in parallel (though not
identical) ways. Grassman's Law appears to be independent in Greek and Skt.
and so on and so on....

Peter