Sievers' law in Germanic

In 1878 Eduard Sievers described how in Sanskrit and Germanic languages the letters i and u that appear after long syllables become y and w after short ones; his law has been controversial every since. Barrack (Germanic linguistics, U. of Washington) investigates whether it is Indo-European in origin, its relationship to alliterative verse in Germanic, and other questions. He describes the phenomenon in proto-Germanic, Gothic, Old Norse, and Old English. Assumes a knowledge of the concepts, terminology, and notation used in linguistics. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR