--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:
>
>
> --- tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
>
> >
> > I think the Grimm-shift in the expanding Germanic
> > was a shibboleth
> > against their para-Germanic cousins, possibly
> > inspired by originally
> > Iranian-speakers among them.
>
> ****GK: Abayev ("Skifo-yevropeiskie izoglossi",
> Moscow: Nauka, 1965, pp. 131-133) suggests the reverse
> relationship, viz., that under centuries-long Germanic
> influence on its Iranic neighbours, Ossetian
> eventually partially participated in the consonant
> shift (e.g. p->f).****
BTW Abayev's A Grammatical Sketch of Ossetic (tr. from Russian) shows
Chattic nature of Ossetic (just kidding):
(Ossetic has glottalized consonants p', t', k', c', c^' of the
standard Caucasian type, so written below.)
'§ 26. In Ossetic, consonant gemination is widespread. The following
examples are fairly typical:
.1 With the addition of the suffixes -ag -on, the final stem consonant
is very often doubled:
fars 'land, side', færssag 'strange, foreign',
qæd 'woods, forest', qæddag 'forest- (adj.)';
balc 'journey', bælccon 'traveller', etc.
Once in a while this phenomenon is also observed before a case ending
t&x 'strength', t&xxæj 'with effort':
t&xxæj ma fervæzmæn 'with difficulty I escaped';
tas 'fear', tæssæj 'from fear':
...
.2
...
.3 The nominal plural marker is geminated if the word ends in a liquid
(r l), a nasal (n m), or a semivowel (j w), and if vowel-weak ening
occurs in the plural form:
æmbal 'comrade, companion', æmbælttæ 'comrades';
kom 'gorge, ravine', kæmttæ 'gorges';
xaj 'part, portion', xæjttæ 'parts, portions', etc.
.4 In the past tense of verbs, both indicative and subjunctive, the
final stem consonant of the past tense, -d- , often appears in
geminated form:
kalddon 'I spilled', kalddain 'I would have spilled'.
(Written kaldton, kaldtain in the official orthography.)
Historically it is possible that assimilation has taken place here.
.5 There is a tendency toward gemination of stops in word-final
position:
sæn&kk "kid, young goat",
wær&kk "lamb",
c'&kk "blow, thrust",
c&r&x'x' "boot",
arax'x' "vodka",
gæxxætt "paper",
æxsitt "whistle",
k'opp "can, (wooden) mug, box",
c'upp "top",
[TP: Arnaud is gonna love these two last ones (and c'&kk ?), with
their glottalization and cognates in the 'Chattic' part of Germanic]
and many others. This type of gemination is not always noted in writing.
When the voiced stops are geminated, they lose part or all of their
voiced quality; and the aspirated stops lose part or all of their
aspiration.
'
Note further that Ossetic has many assimilations, one is -nt- > -tt-,
eg. in dættæ 'rivers' from dænttæ from don "river"
And 'umlaut'.
Torsten