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

[Stefan Georg]

>>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.

>It did:

>*k^  > s        tasn < *dek^m
>*g^  > c [ts]   gorc < *werg^om
>*g^h > j [dz]   jeRn < *g^hesr-

Not quite, Miguel; this is the palatalization/assibilation part of the
satem-story. The whole story, however, envolves a merger of velars and
labiovelars. Is this the case in Armenian ? chem xossum.

>Albanian is satem, or rather "thatem" (*k^ > th).

See above, Albanian also has evaded the required merger.

St.G.

Dr. Stefan Georg
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