From: tgpedersen
Message: 48873
Date: 2007-06-06
>Not 'is', Piotr; 'might be'. It is the standard, but still only one
> On 2007-06-06 10:51, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> > How would you state the rule so that the lack of spirantization
> > before stops is not an exception to Grimm?
>
> It isn't the lack of spirantisation before stops but the failure
> of the *t > *T part of GL to apply AFTER obstruents (so that the
> second element of the clusters *sp, *st, *sk{^/W}, *pt, *k{^/W}t
> is unaffected (the treatment of *-t-t- is special in its own way).
> A phonotactic filter blocking the operation of GL is all that isObviously I don't. I've proposed my own hypothesis.
> needed (or an appropriate ranking of phonotactic constraints in a
> model that uses constraints rather than rules such as optimality
> theory). Proto-Germanic did not tolerate clusters of fricatives
> (except for those with *s as the second element, but *s is
> notorious for occurring more freely than other fricatives). A rule-
> only solution (if you insist on one)
> is also possible, but a bit more costly. It would require GL toOK, but that's not what I proposed.
> operate without exception and then another rule (yrt unnamed, so
> let's call it Fricative Dissimilation) to change non-sibilant
> fricatives back into stops after other fricatives:
>
> *sp > *sf > *sp
> *pt > *fT > *ft
>
> etc.
>
> Expensive, but 100% regular. Something of the sort happened in Old
> English, where, in historical times, clusters such as -xs- and -fs-
> were "hardened" into -ks-, -ps- (as in <fox> etc.)