Re: [tied] The phonetic value of PIE *h3 and the 'drink' root.

On Sun, 21 Jul 2002, Miguel Carrasquer wrote:

> [JER:]
>
> >That a: are influenced by i: stems is generally assumed also for the
> >gen.-dat.-loc. -i of Armenian a-stems; for the gen.-dat. -e of Albanian
> >a-stems; for OIr. gen. -e of a:-stems. I would add also the "i-Motion"
> of
> >Luwian and Lycian.
>
> But the cases of Armenian and Old Irish (and presumably Albanian,
> although I don't have the exact Auslautgesetze at hand), are very
> different from the case of Sanskrit.  In Armenian and Old Irish the
> old a:-stem endings had eroded away (-a:s > -0 for the G.), and it's
> prefectly understandable that endings were borrowed from the i:-stems.
> Such is definitely not the case in Sanskrit.

In OIr. *-a:s would leave -a, but the rest is true and may be the real
reason.

>
> As to the Luwian and Lycian i-Motion, I raise you the Hittite i-stem
> adjectives (oblique in -aya- = Sanskrit -a:ya:- = PIE *-oyah2- ?).

In Hittite intervocalic -y- is lost, so gen. -ayas (beside -as) is
analogical on -awas of adjectival u-stems. I do not know why the suffix
vowel is -a- and not a more direct reflex of *-e-. I expect *-oy-es,
*-ow-es in the nom.pl., but I do not seem to find that in languages that
could show the difference, such as Ved. -ayas, -avas; Gk. -ees ; Goth.
-eis, -jus; Lith. -ys, OCS -Ije; Toch.B -'i is now generally derived from
*-ewes too. Thus *-ey-/*-ew- appears to have been generalized, and so I
would not like to explain -ay-/-aw- by analogy. I would rather think of
*-ew-s going to *-o:s via a stage *-ows which may have been normalized to
*-owos > -awas (all Hitt. gen.sg. forms end in -as) and subsequently used
as a model for -ayas.

[...]

> Your original statement was:
>
> >The Greek aorist épion is of the type élipon, i.e. based on the
> >zero-grade with thematic inflection, in this case *pH3i-e/o-. The
> >structural basis of this stem type was no doubt the old 3sg middle of
> the
> >root-aorist, utilized as the stem of a thematic inflection which was
> >subsequently made active, i.e. 3sg mid. "*pH3i-é" -> 3sg act.
> >"*pH3i-é-t".  However, with this specific verb, it is probably better to
> >depart from the 3pl root aor. *pH3i-ént assuming this structure to have
> >been transferred to the *wid-é-t/*wid-ó-nt model.
>
> I interpreted that as saying that the thematic vowel in épion is not
> original, but analogical (either after 3sg. middle *-e, or 3pl.
> *-e(nt)).  That nicely solved a problem of mine, as I would have
> expected a thematic vowel to have been deleted if it was original (and
> if there was no early laryngeal metathesis in these cases, i.e. epion
> < *(h1e)-pih3-o-m [likewise *siH-e-, diH-e-, skiH-e-], in which case
> the problem also disappears).

There is not a whole lot of evidence I could produce, but at least Hitt.
ishiyanzi 'they bind' indicates that there was no such metathesis. What IS
that rule based on? Why doesn't everybody posit *sH2i-e-, *dHi-e-,
*skHi-e-? Laryngeal metathesis does occur, but all examples I know are
anteconsonantal (or plainly analogical). I cannot see it matters whether
the following vowel is the thematic vowel or not.

Jens