Re: Grimm shift as starting point of "Germanic"

----- Original Message -----
From: "george knysh" <gknysh@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2008 7:45 AM
Subject: Re: [tied] Grimm shift as starting point of "Germanic"


>
> --- Patrick Ryan <proto-language@...> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "george knysh" <gknysh@...>
> > To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
> > Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2008 10:12 PM
> > Subject: Re: [tied] Grimm shift as starting point of
> > "Germanic"
> >
> >
> > >
> > > --- Patrick Ryan <proto-language@...> wrote:
> >
> >
> > <snip>
> >
> > > GK: So Grimm, unique vocabulary items,
> > grammatical
> > > and syntactical divergences, are all "indisputable
> > > data" and there is no certainty in the timing of
> > any
> > > of these?
> >
> > ***
> >
> > In my opinion, only the Grimm changes are
> > "indisputable data".
> >
> > The other marks of Germanic are all arguable.
>
> ****GK: I don't understand your point. By "unique
> vocabulary items","grammatical divergences", and
> "syntactical divergences" (to mention but these) is
> meant, is it not, items which are distinct in the
> Germanic languages as compared to other IE linguistic
> families. Rather than distinctions between Germanic
> and reconstructed PIE (which is what Grimm is all
> about?). What is arguable about these items?****

***

Because PIE had many words which have not been uniformly preserved in all
the derived languages, any word without obvious cognates in PIE is suspected
of being a borrowing. And it may well be. On the other hand, it may be a PIE
word that only the language which became Germanic faithfully preserved; and,
as a consequence, is regarded as non-PIE.

The scholars who seek to identify borrowed words in Germanic rely on a
variety of signs: for example, a-vocalism. Again, this may be a sign of
actual borrowing, but it can equally well be an adoption from a Germanic
dialect which had [a} where the others had [e].

Numerous examples can sway the judgment in one direction or another; and so
these questions remains forever arguable.

With Grimm, we have something completely different. When we see a word in
German that has initial [f], we can assume that so far as we can peer into
the past, that word had [f]. If we project this back to PIE times, either
we still have our [f], in which case Germanic is not a PIE-derived language
but possibly is related through some higher grouping --- or we connect it
with PIE [p]. Most would reject the first suggestion.

We are left then with (almost) indisputable fact of a sound change of *p to
[f].

The problem with Grimm is timing the changes. Not all Germanic dialects will
be changed simultaneously; and timing again becomes problematical.

Does this explain my mostly uninformed position any better?


Patrick