In Greek
In Koine Greek, outside of the context of reduplicating syllables, the alternations involving labials and velars have been completely levelled, and thus Grassmann's law only remains in effect for the alternation between /t/ and /tʰ/, as in the latter two examples above. It makes no difference whether the /tʰ/ in question continues PIE *dʰ or *ɡʷʰ-.
Thus alongside the pair 'fast' : 'faster' displaying Grassmann's law, Greek has the pair 'thick' : 'thicker' from the PIE etymon *bʰn̩ɡʰ- (established by cognate forms like Sanskrit bahú- 'abundant' since *bʰ is the only point of intersection between Greek p and Sanskrit b), in which the /p/ in the comparative is a result of levelling. Similarly, ~ 'come to know' from PIE *bʰewdʰ- has the future . Contrariwise, only /tʰ/ dissimilates before aspirated affixes like the aorist passive in /-tʰɛː/ and the imperative in /-tʰi/; /pʰ/ and /kʰ/ do not, as in 'speak!'.
Read more about this topic: Grassmann's Law
Famous quotes containing the word greek:
“The gothic is singular in this; one seems easily at home in the renaissance; one is not too strange in the Byzantine; as for the Roman, it is ourselves; and we could walk blindfolded through every chink and cranny of the Greek mind; all these styles seem modern when we come close to them; but the gothic gets away.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (18381918)
“What is lawful is not binding only on some and not binding on others. Lawfulness extends everywhere, through the wide-ruling air and the boundless light of the sky.”
—Empedocles 484424 B.C., Greek philosopher. The Presocratics, p. 142, ed. Philip Wheelwright, The Bobbs-Merrill Co., Inc. (1960)