Re: Grimm shift as starting point of "Germanic"

From: fournet.arnaud
Message: 54776
Date: 2008-03-06

From: tgpedersen

There has been some disputes over the relative dating of Grimm and
Verner, some have even argued for splitting Grimm in two with Verner
in the middle. Kuhn argues also Verner took place during the expansion
into NWBlock (see my prev. reference).
Torsten
===========
Last Summer,
you pointed at the Dutch word <pier> "worm"
which you consider NBW
and I see no reason why it can't be pseudo-Celtic *kwer.
Then If the connection with *kwer "worm" is right,
Grimm L.verSch. was finished when this word was borrowed.
A.
============

Unfortunately, since we don't know the donor language(s), we can't
tell in general whether a word from a substrate was borrowed before or
after Grimm. Only when they have been borrowed into neighboring
language groups can we do so. Look at the data for a gloss from
Schrijver's 'language of geminates':
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/46175
see also Arnaud's objections
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/51045
and
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/51046
T.
============
I maintain my previous objection.
handi is from Uralic *kom-t.
This early loan has undergone Grimm L.vS.
And the form *kom-t must have been borrowed
early enough to keep the original PU full form.

Now
we can also see that Roman loanwords :
Käse, Kettle etc have no Grimm L.vS.
And Celtic loanwords haven't :
Ri:k > Germanic *ri:k-

So it's quite obvious Grimm must be really early,
it happened before any contact with
NBW, Celtic and Latin.

And another point is about Gothic
which has :
Grimm
Verner
Consonantic leveling of Grimm

I can't see how so many changes
can happen in four centuries.

A.
=================

One more thing though: Verner and Grimm must have taken place before
Germanic adopted first-syllable stress. There is a large almost
contiguous area in Europe that has or had that type of stress:
Celtic, Germanic, Italic, Hungarian, Czech, Old Polish, Latvian,
Fennic. One might speculate that Germanic passed into that geographic
area when it made that stress-change.
Torsten

========
I don't think it's a strong argument.
When you 're at a loss with stress
You stress either first or last syllabe.
Proto-Germanic speakers can invent that alone.
They chose first syllable stress.
A.
========