Re: Kluge's Law in Italic? (was: Volcae and Volsci)

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "dgkilday57" <dgkilday57@...> wrote:

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> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@> wrote:
> >
> > W dniu 2012-02-10 23:05, dgkilday57 pisze:
> >
> > > It looks difficult, but a native PIE-speaker would have had a different
> > > perspective. The 1966 Guinness Book of World Records claimed that Polish
> > > <chrzaszcz> was the world's most unpronounceable word. (I doubt the
> > > McWhorter brothers knew much Polish.)
> >
> > I don't think they did. And they surely didn't know any Georgian.
> >
> > > As a *dHlo-denier, does Olsen explain Greek <ge'nethlon> by
> > > preaspiration of *t by *h1? This would seem to open a real can of worms,
> > > with <stato's> against Skt. <sthita'->, <platu's> against <pr.thu'->,
> > > and other examples of non-correspondence of Grk and Skt. unvoiced aspirates.
> >
> > There is a small can of worms here, though not really in these cases.
> > Olsen claims that only non-syllabic laryngeals caused the aspiration, so
> > *st&2-tó- presents no problem, the Skt. *-tHi- < *-th&- < *-t&2- being
> > branch-specific, like for example the aspiration in <duhitar->. Likewise
> > in *pl.th2u-, the PIE *h2 followed the stop (though in this particular
> > word the *-th2- sequence is possibly the outcome of a very ancient
> > metathesis in the protolanguage itself, maybe older than Olsen's rule).
> >
> > > And if *h2 preaspirates *t, and she only believes in 3 laryngeals,
> > > 'father' is a real embarrassment.
> >
> > Again, it isn't, because the laryngeal in 'father' is syllabic. What
> > _is_ problematic is the absence of aspiration in 'mother' and 'brother'
> > which has to be explained either by recourse to analogy ('father',
> > 'daughter') of by refining the condition of the rule (perhaps
> > sensitivity to the placement of accent). Family terms are tricky. After
> > all, we have a similar conundrum in Modern English, where <father> and
> > <mother> (unlike <brother>) are phonologically aberrant (Chaucer still
> > had <fader> and <mo:der> but <bro:ther> 600+ years ago).
>
> I do not see how the laryngeal in *p&2te'r- can be syllabic if the one in *st&2-to'- (I prefer *st&4-to'-) is non-syllabic.

No one said anything like that. In her theory there would be * staxtlo+ > * staxtHlo+ > * statHlo+ . As I've said before, it's wrong and not PIE, but an opt. change in IE. The distribution in Greek and Latin, in which dh/th can't be differentiated, makes it clear that it only occurs where "laryngeals" could turn t>tH. If *-dHlo- existed, it would be clear from Indo-Iranian or Baltic, etc.; and since it isn't it didn't exist.


Though you're arguing w Piotr now, he used to believe the same thing; and even gave supposed ev. for it. If he can realize his mistake, you should be able to understand that not one word in any language requires *-dHlo-, and the totality of ev. shows it never existed, only a conditioned *-tHlo-, etc.

>

And if Olsen explains Italic *-flo-/*-fla:- on the basis of *-&1/2tlo-/*-&1/2tleh2-, she has another can of worms in Latin <status> and all the rest not reflected as *stafus etc.,

>

This was already answered as syl. vs non-syl. (wrong because few people accept any opt., also for no reason).

> Olsen's whole scheme looks like a way to justify denying *-dHlo-/*-dHleh2- by lumping the reflexes together with *-tlo-/*-tleh2-, and while this may be ingenious per se, the ramifications are starting to look as complicated as a system of Ptolemaic epicycles.

Maybe her theory would, but simple opt. changes create no problems.