Re: [tied] Greek labiovelars

On Uto, ožujak 14, 2006 11:56 pm, andrew jarrette reče:

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> From: Jens Elmegĺrd Rasmussen
> Reply-To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
> To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [tied] Greek labiovelars
> Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 14:08:44 -0000
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> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Joao S. Lopes" wrote:
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>> Does it mean that in Celtic the shift *gWH >gH>g occurred before the
> labialization of the labio-velars?
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>> Time 1: k g gH kW gW gWH
>> Time 2 : k g gH kW gW
>> Time 3: k g kW gW
>> Time 4: k g kW b
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> No, it can only mean:
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> 1: k g gH kW gW gWH
> 2 : k g gH kW b gWH
> 3: k g kW b gW
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> But why is *gW so special? That's what I don't understand. Is it because
> it was a glottalic stop, as some theorize? I see no reason why *kW and
> *gWH should remain as /kW/ and /gW/ but *gW must become /b/. Why not also
> *kW > /p/ and *gWH > /b/? Or conversely *gW remain /gW/ like the other
> two? And in Greek (Attic, Ionic) *gW is special also since although like
> *kW > /t/ before /e/, *gW > /d/ before /e/, nevertheless unlike *kW > /t/
> before /i/, *gW > /b/ before /i/. I can see absolutely no phonological
> basis for this, except dialect mixing, as Sean Whalen suggested. But
> these developments in Irish, Greek, and the tentative ones in Albanian
> suggest that the labiovelars were very special in a number of
> Indo-European languages, undergoing phonological changes that seem to
> defy natural expectations (or normal phonological tendencies). It seems
> much more natural to me for *kis or *k'is to become /tis/ than it does for
> *kWis to become /tis/, yet a sequence *kis or *k'is would remain /kis/ in
> Greek, while *kWis becomes /tis/. I find this truly remarkable and would
> never believe it were it not documented fact.
> Andrew Jarrette

The problem is that you put far to much into "common sense", "logic",
"natural (?) expectations" and those often have nothing whatsoever to with
the process of linguistic change. That is exactly the reason why one
should first look at the empirical data before making general conclusions
such as: if *kW > p, then *gW > b. That indeed *does* happen often but
it's not the only possibility. Unparalleled changes have been known to
happen. It can hardly be called unusual.

Mate