Phonemic split

[X99Lynx at aol.com]

In a message dated 9/9/99 10:23:48 PM, you wrote:

<<...because the Celtic velar series would have to sporadically
split into a velar series and a palatal series in Anatolian, Indo-Iranian,
etc.  Steven Long's response was that this split could simply have been an
innovation in those branches....>>

<<2.  The proto-language for the IE family had a two-way contrast between
velar and labiovelar consonants.  There was a sporadic phonemic split
giving rise to the three-way distinction found in Luvian, Indo-Iranian
(with the later merger in Indo-Iranian between the velars and
labiovelars), etc. (Steve Long's Proto-Celtic hypothesis).

#1 involves only regular sound changes, while #2 involves a sporadic
change.  We therefore pick #1.>>

Two quick observations.

1. Unless your premise is that the three obstruent distinction was there from
the very start of human speech, you are going to have to find a way for
language to acquire obstruent sets.  Otherwise you follow an obvious path,
where if all 20 daughters have a total of lets say 20 "obstruents" together,
then the reconstructed parent must have had all twenty "obstruents".  (Please
don't take "obstruents" literally.)

Either the "sporadic phonemic split" needed to create 3 different obstruents
out of less than 3 happened somewhere along the line, or three obstruents
have always been with us.   If that emergence ever happened, you can look
back into Nostratic times or you can look to the satem group.  What I think
is doubly ironic is that the satem effect itself clearly spread among
presumably "centum" languages in a way that needed no prior excuse for its
existence.  Yet the addition (or rather spread) of a new obstruent among the
same group is not so favored.

The very use of the words "split" and "merge" of course presumes that the
process was self-generating rather than an adoption or acceptance.  The
process that produced the "spread" of satem cannot be explained that way.

2. I actually believe (on compelling authority) that there were three
obstruents series in PIE.  My whole point, I think you know, is that the
approach used to derive the Stammbaum could not discriminate the hypothetical
"Celtic1...Celtic6" from PIE (or for that matter any of the daughter language
groups.)  Using reconstructed obstruents doesn't change that, especially
since your approach doesn't use reconstructions.

My even bigger point was, because the approach is blind to continuity, it
really can't identify more than the differences between languages.  It can't
really identify "innovations" because it can't be sure that they are
innovations.  It doesn't know what the original was.  And because it is blind
to continuity, it can't be relied upon to see chronology properly.  To the
extent you are now relying on reconstructions to fill in those holes, you are
simply reflecting the assumptions already in those reconstructions.  And
there is nothing new in that.

So far I haven't seen anything that contradicts this assessment of the
approach described as deriving the Stammbaum.

Regards,
Steve Long