Re: Grimm's Law is about to expire (Collinge 1985, p. 267, Thundy 1

From: mkelkar2003
Message: 47872
Date: 2007-03-15

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham" <richard@...> wrote:
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "mkelkar2003" <swatimkelkar@> wrote:
>
> I've converted the character entities (ʰ) that sneaked in to
> nornal Cybalist notation (H).
>
> [> Richard Wordingham wrote:]
> > > However, please leave out the examples
> > > that can be explained by Grassman's law -
>
> > See that is the problem here.
>
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grassmann's_law
>
> > "The fact that deaspiration in Greek took place after the change of
> > Proto-Indo-European *bH, dH, gH to /pH, tH, kH/, and the fact that no
> > other Indo-European languages have Grassmann's law, show that
> > Grassmann's law developed independently in Greek and Sanskrit; it was
> > not inherited from PIE."
>
> > Why independently? I would just put Greek and Sanskrit in one family.
>
> At most it's a phonetic constraint common to them. Actually, the law
> also applies to Tocharian.
>
> How widely could the law have applied? In most groups the effects
> would have been obliterated by the subsequent merger of aspirated and
> unaspirated voiced stops, though if it had applied to Slavonic it
> would have affected the operation of Winter's law.
>
> > "http://ablauttime.blogspot.com/2004/10/those-old-ie-sound-laws.html
> >
> > "I've spent the better part of the last two days (or so it seems)
> > either explaining to students how Grassman's Law can possible explain
> > exceptions to Grimm's law when it didn't even occur in Germanic or
> > trying to convince them that there is some reason that they should
> > learn what Grimm's Law, Verner's Law, Grassman's Law, and the Great
> > English Vowel Shift are.
>
> He should have thrown in some examples from Latin, which has distinct
> reflexes for word-initial voiced stops and voiced aspirated stops.
>
> > If one needs two more laws to explain
> > exceptions to an earlier law then its best to get rid of all three and
> > replace them with the ancient Indian tradition.
>
> > "A different analytical approach was taken by the ancient Indian
> > grammarians. In their view, the roots are taken to be underlying
> > /trikH/ and /tapH/. These roots persist unaltered in [trikH-es] and
> > [tapH-ein]. But if an /s/ follows, it triggers an "aspiration
> > throwback" (ATB), in which the aspiration migrates leftward, docking
> > onto the initial consonant ([tHrik-s], [tHap-sai])."
>
> Ancient Indian grammarians' views on Greek morphology?
>
> Grassmann's law also explains the stop consonant of the reduplicating
> syllable in Greek and, apart from the Law of Palatals, in Sanskrit.
> The Indian tradition also fails to explain why ATB applies to a voiced
> consonant in Sanskrit and a voiceless consonant in Greek (or does
> Grassmann's law affect any voiceless aspirates in Sanskrit?)
>
> Finally, you are still left with correspondences such as
>
> Skt _bandHati_, Greek _pentHeros_, English _bind_
>
> I don't see how the Indian tradition explains such correspondences.
> It isn't just Germanic which testifies to an initial voiced aspirate
> in such words - Latin does to, e.g.
>
> Skt _budHna_, Greek _putHme:n_, English _bottom_ (OE _boþm_ is more
> representative of Germanic - I'm not sure of the relevance of the
> surname _Botham_), Latin _fundus_.
>
> Skt _dahati_ 'burn', Greek _tepHra_ 'ash', Latin _foveo:_ 'to be warm'.
>
> You are only talking of an exception to Grimm's law if you start from
> the Greek or Sanskrit form - the Latin form also has an exceptional
> correspondence to the Greek and Sanskrit.
>
> Richard.
>

Thank you Dr. Wordingham for these detailed examples. The following
are real words:

Skt _bandHati_, Greek _pentHeros_, English _bind_

Great! There are laws needed to explain why the b and p are going back
and forth. But the English word bind (or an earlier OE word) is not
attested till 3000 years later. So why must the proto language be
reconstructed to accomodate all three?

I read the following over and over again and it really bothers me.

"The fact that deaspiration in Greek took place after the change of
> > Proto-Indo-European *bH, dH, gH to /pH, tH, kH/, and the fact that no
> > other Indo-European languages have Grassmann's law, show that
> > Grassmann's law developed independently in Greek and Sanskrit; it was
> > not inherited from PIE."


Now PIE is not real. Why the insistance on fitting reality to a
hypothetical reconstruction? The hypothetical reconstruction should
fit reality. Please read the above again "the FACT that no other
Indo-European langauges have Grassman's law."

Now that is NOT A FACT because PIE is not a FACT. In other words where
is the guarantee that the "deaspiration in Greek took place after the
change of
> > Proto-Indo-European *bH, dH, gH to /pH, tH, kH"

M. Kelkar