"centum"/"satem" "exceptions" [was Re: Northwest IE attributes]

[Richard M. Alderson III]

Sean Crist wrote, in response to my statement that Albanian and Armenian are
(counted as) "satem" languages:

> That's not correct; Armenian underwent an independent set of consonant
> changes which roughly resemble Grimm's Law in Germanic.  Armenian did not
> undergo the satem consonant shift.

*k' > s, *g' > c [ts], *g'h > j [dz]; *k{^w} > k`, *g{^w} > k, *g{^w}h > g.

The Grimm's Law-like shifts in Armenian are independent of the "satem" status
of the language.

> As for Albanian, I can't say much; it's so heavily mutated that it's not
> of much use in reconstructing PIE, and I know next to nothing about the
> sound changes it underwent.  I can say that I've never heard anyone claim
> that Albanian underwent the satem shift.

I pulled a handful of handbooks off the shelf at home this morning.  Here's
what I found.

Buck, _Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin_, 1933:  Page 124 (sec. 144),
Armenian and Albanian are included in the list of _satem_ languages.

Sihler, _New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin_, 1995:  Page 7 (sec. 11),
Armenian and Albanian are included in the list of _satem_ languages.

Beekes, _Comparative Indo-European Linguistics : An Introduction_, 1995:  Page
30 (sec. 2.4), Armenian and Albanian are included in the list of _satem_
languages.

Szemere'nyi, _Introduction to Indo-European Linguistics_, 1996:  Page 58 (sec.
4.7.4 and 4.7.5), Armenian and Albanian are included in the list of _satem_
languages.

Mr. Crist also wrote, regarding my statement of the "consensus view":

>> Since then, it has been argued that PIE had either (1) palatals and velars,
>> and labiovelars are a late development, or (2) plain velars and labiovelars,
>> and palatals are a late development.  Today's consensus view seems to be a
>> third alternative, that PIE had palatals and labiovelars, and plain velars
>> are an odd development of one or both.

> The first view, which you attribute to the Neogrammarians, is the majority
> view today.

And Xavier Delamarre wrote on the same topic:

> This is not true at all. There is no consensus for a two-series system of
> tectals (whatever the arrangement). The doubts cast on a three-series system
> (k', k, k^w) goes back to Meillet in his _Introduction ` la gramm. comp.
> des langues IE_ (last ed.1937), repeated by Lehman in his _Phonology_ (1952),
> and taken up since by a variety of scholars in France & US.

Let this be a lesson to us all.  Too frequently, the "consensus view" of an
issue is the view we learned in graduate school if the issue was not one that
interested us at the time.  Since the textbooks for my first courses in IE
linguistics were Meillet 1937, Szemerenyi 1970 (the first edition of the book
cited above), and a little later Buck 1933, I will plead ignorance of develop-
ments on the "centum"/"satem" issue of the last 25 years, and ask forgiveness
of those I have unintentionally misled, and admit that I should just have kept
my mouth shut.

Finally, I see that while stating what I thought was the consensus, I neglected
to state that I disagreed with all three positions outlined, and thought that
the Neogrammarians had it right all along--a view unpopular with the faculty at
the time such things mattered to me.

My thanks to Mr. Crist and M. Delamarre for bringing me up to date.

								Rich Alderson