another Indic development, namely what looks like the deaspiration of aspirated stops in clusters with s: descriptively, Proto-Indo-European "you lick" becomes *leyksi, whence Sanskrit lekṣi. However, Grassmann's law, whereby an aspirated stop becomes non-aspirated before another aspirated stop (as in the example of buddha, above), suggests something else. In late Vedic and later forms of Sanskrit, all forms behave as though aspiration was simply lost in clusters with s, so such forms to the root dugh- "give milk" (etymologically *-) show the expected devoicing and deaspiration in, say, the desiderative formation du-dhukṣ-ati (with the root-initial dh- intact, that is, undissimulated). But the earliest passages of the Rigveda show something different: desiderative dudukṣati, aorist dukṣata (for later dhukṣata) and so on. Thus it is apparent that what went into Grassmann's law were forms like *dhugzhata, dhudhugzha- and so on, with aspiration in the sibilant clusters intact. The deaspiration and devoicing of the sibilant clusters were later and entirely separate phenomena (and connected with yet another suite of specifically Indic sound laws, namely a "rule conspiracy" to eliminate all voiced – and murmured – sibilants). Indeed, even the example "swallowed" given above contradicts the usual interpretation of devoicing and deaspiration: by such a sequence, *ghs-to gave, first, *ksto (if the process was already Indo-European) or *ksta (if Indo-Iranian in date), whence Sanskrit *kta, not gdha. Relative chronology There is no evidence that Bartholomae's law predated Indo-Iranian, that is, that it was a feature of Proto-Indo-European. The Latin form lectus "couch" and Ancient Greek léktron "bed" are differently formed but both continue the root "lie" (the English word being from the same root). But because the Latin would otherwise have resulted in a forbidden cluster (**gt), it may well just be a case of voicing assimilation. In similar combinations arising within Greek, the pattern is for the whole cluster to become aspirated, thus **lékhthron. It obviously does not in this formation, which for other reasons as well is likely to be very old. This may be because the consonant cluster is more complex. In the case of Latin lectus, it is significant that the root does not otherwise survive in Latin at all, so that there can be no history of analogical remodeling or other disturbances. It is not completely clear what the result of a sequence would have been in Latin, but other evidence suggests lengthening of the vowel plus simplification, so