Re: On the ordering of some PIE rules

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

>
>
>
> Three traditional rules for IE:
>
> 1 RUKI (Balto-Slavic, Iranian)
> 2a *-dhT-, *-dT- -> *-zd-, *-tT- -> *-st- (Balto-Slavic, Iranian)
> b *-dhT- -> *-ddh-, *-dT- -> *-dd-, *-tT- -> *-tt- (Indic)
> c *-dhT-, *-dT-, *-tt- -> *-ss- (Celtic, Germanic, Italic)
> where T is any stop
> 3 stop + consonant -> corresponding fricative + consonant (Iranian)
> 4 stop -> fricative etc (Germanic, Armenian)
>
> Sequence 1 < 2, 2 < 3, 2 < 4
>
> 1 must have come before 2, as Beekes (A Grammar of Gatha-Avestan)
> points out, since the sibilants in outcome of the assibilation rule
> otherwise would have been affected by the RUKI rule which they
> aren't (Avestan cit + ti -> cisti, not **cis^ti).
> It seems strange that the assibilation rule which seems to have
> applied over a large area in some form, should have come after the
> RUKI rule which is limited to Balto-Slavic and Iranian (and
> Armenian, I think). Also, the Iranian rule 3 seems to be similar to
> and in competition to the assibilation rule. Also, it is strange
> that almost all IE languages agree that the otherwise non-affricated
> dentals of PIE suddenly should be assibilated when they meet.
> Therefore I propose the following sequence of rules to replace those
> above:
>
> 1 stop + stop -> corresponding fricative + stop (PIE)
> 2 RUKI (Balto-Slavic, Indo-Iranian)
> 3a *-Dd- -> *-zd-, *-Tt- -> *-st- (Balto-Slavic, Iranian)
> 3b *-Ddh- -> *-ddh-, *-Dd- -> *-dd-, *-Tt- -> *-tt- (Indic)
> 3c *-Ddh-, *-Dd-, *-Tt- -> *-ss- (Celtic, Germanic, Italic)
> where T is the fricative thorn and D is its voiced counterpart.
> 4 generalization of rule 1 by analogy to
> stop + consonant -> corresponding fricative + consonant (Iranian)
> 5 generalization of rule 1 by analogy to
> stop -> corresponding fricative
> (Germanic and Armenian, under influence of Iranian)
> 6 the opposite generalization of 5
> fricative -> corresponding stop, cf Sanskrit above
> (all other languages)
>
> Sequence 1 < 2, 2 < 3a, 2 < 3b, 1 < 3c, 3a < 4, 3c < 5, 2 < 6
>
> Note that T means something different in the new than in the old set
> of rules; that is the consequence of using ASCII.

Given a claim that Germanic developed while dominated by Iranian
speakers (those that are disgusted with my Odin-Galicia-Thuringia
story can think of it instead as King Arthurs Sarmatians arriving for
Roman duty in Germania), a good candidate for the choice of Iranian
language in which to find features similar of those in Germanic is
Ossetian; it is generally considered to be the descendant of Alanic,
the speakers of which are on historical record as participating in the
Germanic migration, roving from Portugal to China),

First a look at the havoc my rule 1 caused in paradigms which were
later set right by generalization (by my rule 6) in all languages
except Germanic (trad.: caused by the first rule 3 in Iranian)
Gatha-Avestan
Ns pta: "father"
As ptaram
Ds fTrai

this hopeless and foreign-learner unfriendly paradigm is corrected in
Late Avestan
Ns pita
As pitr&m
Ds piTre
(but still Ap f&Dro:)

but, however, in Ossetian
(Abaev: A Grammatical Sketch of Ossetic)
Ns f&d "father" Np f&dæltæ
(cf
Ns mad "mother" Np madæltæ,
the normal pl suff is -tæ, no doubt from -tai)
which shows that the paradigm in this language has been generalized
not back to the original stop as in 'high-status' late Avestan, but
instead to the corresponding fricative, as I claimed for Germanic; and
not only that, one also finds
fondz "five"
fis- "write"
which can neither be the result of the rule above making fricatives
out of stops before consonants nor the result of the rule above
generalizing the fricative allophone of a paradigm, but must be the
result of zealously over-interpreting the paradigm-regularizing rule
replacing stops with fricatives, which I claimed (my rule 5) was also
the mechanism behind the seeming soundshift in Germanic and Armenian
(the last step of what I elsewhere call the 'shibboleth'-effect).

Unfortunately since Abaev supplies no historical phonology, I've had
to generalize from the above two examples.


Torsten