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A Grassmann's Law for Salish
Academic Work
Among the 23 languages of the Salish family, four show dissimilation rules that are very similar in spirit to those which Grassmann noted as alike in Greek and Sanskrit. Where the Indo-European cases concern deaspiration, the Salishan rules involve mainly deglottalization, but the principle is obviously the same. In all the languages there is a series of glottalized stops (and affricates) corresponding to plain (unglottalized) counterparts, and the glottalized elements are replaced by those unglottalized counterparts when there is a glottalized element later in the stem. One of the languages has recently developed a contrast between aspirated and unaspirated stops. In that language, in reduplicative prefixes, underlying aspirated stops are deaspirated before the stem aspirate, behavior precisely corresponding to Grassman's Law.
AW.00120
1983
Language and Linguistics
UBC Working Papers in Linguistics Press
International Conference on Salish and Neighbouring Languages, 18, 338-352
International Conference on Salish and Neighbouring Languages, 18, 338-352
glottalization, deglottalization, deaspiration, aspiration, unaspiration, Salishan
Working Papers
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