Talk:Brugmann's law

Unattributed facts/ original research
I quite like a lot of this article even though it needs a good clean up - the rather personal style isn't really very encyclopedic and it needs a lot of sourcing. More worrying is the last paragraph. The idea that ablaut e/o alternation was originally a/ā must be possible but I don't see how that relates to the possible existence of PIE *a mentioned before that; I don't see how it's connected to the subject of the article; I can't see any evidence for the proposal (just a "what if?"); most importantly the idea's not sourced and I've never come across anything like it before. This makes me suspect original research. If the paragraph's author could clarify things that would be really good but I'm tempted to delete. --Lo2u (T • C) 00:48, 11 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Rereading it I do now understand the connection to the article but not to the absence/presence of *a in PIE. I don't see what problem the proposal is supposed to solve though or what might cause someone to propose it (is a long/short *a alternation really "more familiar"? Does the proposal help to regularise some irregular sound change? It seems to me the answer to both questions is no). I really suspect that Wikipedia is the first to publish the idea.--Lo2u (T • C) 21:45, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

The plural forms in Sanskrit are completely wrong, the article seems to suggest, e.g., that 'pitaras' is Sanskrit for 'fathers', which is, of course, bullS.

Brugmann's 'law' indeed, just more examples of the ignorant western mentality, cut-off from the real world and living on an island of its own. Bet our brugmann never got off his backside in some university chair to actually visit the places and acquaint himself with the cultures that begat the languages he was presumptuous enough to codify a 'law' for. I have a theory of my own -maybe it's their inferiority complex due fresh memories of their forest dwelling barbarism that plays a role? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.123.162.82 (talk) 17:03, 29 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm puzzled as to how this is "just more examples of the ignorant western mentality". 151.188.137.191 (talk) 15:18, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Controversial?
According to whom is this law controversial? I just checked the works of some authors and I couldn't find anyone sceptical about the law. Some acknowledged that we don't fully understand the functioning of it, but they all accepted it. Here there is a list of the authors I found who support the law. The first four are have written well known introductions to the field. It must also be noted that in the paper I checked for Kloekhorst, He was addressing an argument that was supported solely on Brugmann's law, but he didn't attack it, not even to strengthen his argument, which shows it's not controversial at all. Tom 144 (talk) 05:00, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
 * R. Beeks
 * J. Clarkson
 * B. Fortson
 * D. Ringe
 * A. Kloekhorst
 * P. Kiparsky
 * A. Yates


 * As far as I can tell, the only person who "rejects" Brugmann's law is Jouna Pyysalo, who's the same guy that rejects laryngeal theory. 151.188.137.191 (talk) 15:24, 17 January 2023 (UTC)