On Sun, 28 Dec 2003 00:32:27 -0800, Andy Howey
<
andyandmae_howey@...> wrote:
>Hello, all:
>
>Is anyone familiar with the following book title? It purports to list and detail the sound laws of Indo-European (Brugmann's, Grassman's, Sievers', and a whole bunch more that I hadn't heard of before), and I was wondering if it's worthwhile.
>
>Title: The Laws of Indo-European
>Author: N.E. Collinge
>ISBN: 0 915027 75 5
I have it. It's sometimes worthwile as a handy reference, and contains
many interesting things. However, it's not an easy book. Most chapters
deal with that subfield of Indoeuropeanistics which has yielded most named
laws, namely Balto-Slavic accentology. Not only is this a difficult
subject in itself, but one should keep in mind that some of the treated
laws are mutually contradictory. Even outside of Balto-Slavic accentology,
Collinge's book is not a straightforward read. Most chapters start out
giving the law in its original formulation by its original formulator,
which is then followed by a summary of exceptions and/or objections to the
law formulated by other Indo-Europeanists, often resulting in complete
reformulations of the law, which may or may not have much in common with
the original version. This is then followed by objections and/or
exceptions to the reformulation of the law, etc., etc. The naive reader
might get the impression that almost none of the laws are valid, and that
Indoeuropeanistics is a field of chaos, without any law or order.
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...