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

On Sun, 21 Jul 2002 23:55:56 +0200 (MET DST), Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen
<jer@...> wrote:

>> 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'm not familiar with a soundlaw by wich intervocalic -y- is always
lost in Hittite. There is no loss in the verb iyami "I do", for
instance, or in the suffix -(y)a "and", which is -a after consonants,
but -ya after vowels(!). I don't think the occasional contraction of
-aya- to -a- (or -iya- to -i-, -uwi- > -u-, -uwa- > -u-) had reached
the status of a soundlaw in Hittite. Of course, sporadic glide
deletion of the very same kind can account for the loss of -y- in the
oblique forms of the a:-stems outside of Indo-Iranian (*-oya:- >
*-oa:- > *-a:-), especially in such a common paradigmatic ending as
the feminine oblique (cf. the colloquial rendering of the past tense
as -aa in both Polish -al/a and Catalan -ava).

>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.

In the Nom.pl. I expect the same as in the Voc.sg., i.e. -ei-es and
-ou-es ~ -eu-es. The -o- in the u-stems is not a "real" *o (Skt. Dat.
-ave: not *-a:ve:, Nom.pl. *-avas, not *-a:vas) but an Umlaut of *e
(as in *gWou- "cow", Skt. oblique gavV, not *ga:vV, not *javV), a
phonetic development which appears to be restricted to u-stems only.

The Hittite i-stems with oblique forms in -aya- (-a-), mainly
adjectives, but some nouns also show the pattern, are in my opinion a
compromise between i-stems with oblique -éis etc. (> Hitt. -iyas) and
a:-stems with obl. -oya:s etc. (> Hitt. -ayas), with additional
support from the ay-stems (*oi-stems) with Hitt. nom. in -ais, obl.
-iyas or -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.

I just mentioned the metathesis as a possibility, without expressing
an opinion. Whether the following vowel is thematic or not may matter
if there was a consonantic something about the thematic vowel (I don't
remember the details now [was it /?e/, with a kind of glottal stop?],
but I think it was _you_ who suggested that somewhere).

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...