Centum-Satem isogloss: Encyclopedia II - Centum-Satem isogloss - Proto-Indo-European dorsals

Centum-Satem isogloss - Proto-Indo-European dorsals

The Centum-Satem isogloss discusses the treatement of the three dorsal rows reconstructed for PIE, *kʷ, *gʷ, *gʷʰ (labiovelars), *k, *g, *gʰ (velars), and *ḱ, *ǵ, *ǵʰ; (palatovelars) in the daughter languages. A division into a Centum and a Satem group does only make sense with a view to the parent language with the full inventory of dorsals. Later sound changes within a specific branch of Indo-European that are similar to one of the changes, such as the palatalization of Latin k to s in some Romance languages or the merger of *kʷ with *k in the Goidelic languages, have no effect on the grouping.

August Schleicher in his 1871 Compendium assumes only a single velar row, k, g, gh. Karl Brugmann in his 1886 Grundriss accepts only two rows, denoting them q, g, gh "velar explosives" vs. k̑, g̑ and g̑h "palatal explosives". Brugmann terms the Centum languages "languages with labialization" or "u̯-languages" and the Satem languages "languages without labialization", and he opines that

But by the 1897 edition, Brugmann has changed his mind, and accepting the centum vs. satem terminology introduced by von Badke in 1890 he now denotes the labiovelars as q^u̯, q^u̯h, g^u̯, g^u̯h (also intrducing voiceless aspirates).

The presence of three dorsal rows in the proto-language is still not universally accepted. The reconstructed "middle" row may also be an artifact of loaning between early daughter languages during the process of Satemization. Oswald Szemerényi for instance (e.g. in his 1995 Introduction), while recognizing the usefulness of the distinction *kʷ, *k, *ḱ as symbolizing sound-correspondences does argue that the support for three phonologically distinct rows in PIE is insufficient and prefers a twofold notation of *kʷ, *k. Other scholars who assume two dorsal rows in PIE include Kuryłowicz (1935), Meillet (1937), Lehmann (1952), and Woodhouse (1998).

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Proto-Indo-European dorsals", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki