On 2006-09-16 18:57, Andrew Jarrette wrote:
> Do you believe that, as in the Glottalic Theory, the IE "voiced
> aspirates" were really just simple voiced plosives? Then this would
> mean that Greek voiceless aspirates and Latin voiceless fricatives
> evolved from simple voiced plosives like [b], [d], and [g]. Why should
> the Glottalic Theory be taken seriously if this is what it is saying?
It's interesting to note that Theo Vennemann, who once advocated one of
the versions of the Glottalic Theory, has now taken an about-turn. In
his 2006 article on "Grimm's Law and loanwords" (Transactions of the
Philological Society 104) he claims to have discovered new evidence that
"unambiguously supports the traditional framework, in particular a shift
of voiced to voiceless plosives under Grimm's Law". The evidence is
based on the patterns of integration found in what Vennemann believes to
be prehistoric borrowings from Semitic (Phoenician) into Germanic.
Piotr