Evidence for laryngeal aspiration in Greek? Part I: The 'recent' evidence

Since de Saussure, H. Pedersen and Kurylowicz the Sanskrit (and Indo-Iranian) voiceless aspirates are considered to be the result from the combination of a plain voiceless plosive and a laryngeal (*h(2) according to most scholars), and, consequently, the existence of phonemic voiceless aspirates in PIE is no longer accepted. In more recent times, an evolution similar to that of Indo-Iranian has been assumed for Greek as well but the Greek situation is less convincing and has not been investigated as thoroughly as the Indo-Iranian branch. This article investigates the "recent" evidence in favour of the laryngeal aspiration in Greek (Peters 1993a and b, Werba 1996, Mayrhofer 2005, Matzinger 2005 and Vine 2006) and finds that most examples are not conclusive: either the reconstruction is not conclusive or there is an example under exactly the same circumstances that argues against aspiration. The older evidence (used by Sturtevant, Collinge, Hamp, Klingenschmitt and Isebaert) will be discussed in part 2.

Another look at the H2O problem

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Another attempt at a chronology for Grassmann’s Law in Greek

This article takes another look at the chronology of Grassmann's Law (GL). It investigates the different dating suggestions - Indo-European, pre-Mycenaean, post-Mycenaean, post-Homeric - and assesses them critically. The article first holds that the evidence from Germanic, Latin and Iranian indicates that GL did not operate in PIE and secondly agrees with Ruijgh, Lejeune, Janko, Hajnal, Plath and Vine that GL only operated after the Mycenaean era. To prove this, the article uses the evidence from Mycenaean, Homeric scansion, and augmentation and reduplication in the Greek verbal morphology. The article finally finds that there are some indications to put GL after the period in which the Homeric poems were written down (somewhere between the end of the 9th - beginning 8th century BC in our opinion).

Mapping the current market dynamics: the case of Belgium

This paper analyses the demand and supply in the housing market of Belgium through several indices. On the basis of this analysis, housing market dynamics can be mapped in a spatial context. This mapping is based on a typology of municipalities. The different types of municipalities are compared and maps of spatial housing dynamics are conceived. These patterns are then set out to the desired spatial structure of Belgium. This gives insight in the contrast between the actual spatial dynamics and desired spatial dynamics by policy plans. Are we developing the housing market on the places where the market is the most dynamic or not

Home-ownership and asset-based welfare: the case of Belgium

In this article, using policy documents and both qualitative and quantitative data sources, we evaluate the extent to which the Belgian welfare system conforms to trends towards asset-based welfare involving the promotion of home-ownership as an alternative to social security provision. We conclude that, following the explicit and ongoing sponsorship of home-ownership since the end of the 19th century, in Belgium, an asset-based approach to welfare has actually been in place for some time. Most Belgian elderly people are income-poor (mainly due to low public pensions) but asset-rich. While the risk of poverty for home-owners in old age is somewhat higher than that for the general population, it is much higher for elderly renters. As far as the preconditions for a possible restructuring of the Belgian welfare state in the direction of greater reliance on asset-based welfare are concerned, we find that most of them are fulfilled. Public debt is high with increasing costs of population ageing looming large on the economic horizon. However, although some politicians have raised the issue, so far, virtually no initiatives have been taken to tap into existing housing wealth. Our qualitative evidence shows that this can be partly explained by the fact that Belgians have a rather conservative attitude towards the welfare state, which is expected to provide adequately for 'traditional' life-course risks such as unemployment and old age. Housing is considered a private issue, separated from the social security sphere

Towards an efficient multiscale modeling of low-dimensional reactive systems: study of numerical closure procedures

In this paper, we present a study on how to develop an efficient multiscale simulation strategy for the dynamics of chemically active systems on low-dimensional supports. Such reactions are encountered in a wide variety of situations, ranging from heterogeneous catalysis to electrochemical or (membrane) biological processes, to cite a few. We analyzed in this context different techniques within the framework of an important multiscale approach known as the equation free method (EFM), which "bridges the multiscale gap" by building microscopic configurations using macroscopic-level information only. We hereby considered two simple reactive processes on a one-dimensional lattice, the simplicity of which allowed for an in-depth understanding of the parameters controlling the efficiency of this approach. We demonstrate in particular that it is not enough to base the EFM on the time evolution of the average concentrations of particles on the lattice, but that the time evolution of clusters of particles has to be included as well. We also show how important it is for the accuracy of this method to carefully choose the procedure with which microscopic states are constructed, starting from the measured macroscopic quantities. As we also demonstrate that some errors cannot be corrected by increasing the number of observed macroscopic variables, this work points towards which procedures should be used in order to generate efficient and reliable multiscale simulations of these systems.Comment: 15 pages, 11 figure