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

--- In cybalist@..., "sergejus_tarasovas" <S.Tarasovas@...> wrote:

> --- In cybalist@..., "elmerasdk" <jer@...> wrote:
>
> Dear Jens,
> thank you for this detailed clarification of your point of view.

The

> comments below is not a try to argue -- rather some questions "in
> wake of".

But argue and criticize by all means, that's what the list is for.
Your observations are most valuable and deserve as good a reply as I
can give:

>
> >There is also the indirect evidence of Baltic
> > metatony, as Lith. skìrtas 'separated' (mobile, IE end-stressed
> type,
> > her restored after the working of Hirt's Law) vs.
> > skir~tas 'separation' (barytone) or áukstas 'high' (mobile, IE

end-

> > stressed) : au~kstas 'storey' (barytone), where the circumflex is
> (in
> > my opinion) best explained by the lateness of the

differentiation:

> > after a certain point in time Lithuanian formed no more acutes
> > (you've begun again in words like bánkas because that now sounds
> > closer to the foreign source); so here, too, the variants consist
> of
> > the same material, only the accent has been differentiated to
> express
> > a difference of "part of speech" (substantive vs. adjective), and
> > when that happened late enough the newly accented syllables could
> > only get circumflex, whence the difference which is thus
> essentially
> > not one of intonation, but of accent placing.
>
> But this point in time should be probably placed rather late on the
> time axis because Lithuanian seems to hesitate between circumflex

and

> acute in early borrowings from Slavic: _lénkas_ 'Pole',
> _kùrtas_ 'hunting dog of high class', _tùlkas_ 'translator',
> _bìrkavas_ '10 pounds', _cìrkva_ 'church', _s^álmas_ 'helmet',
> _Póvilas_ 'Paul', _bažnýc^ia_ 'church', _nedé:lia_ 'Sunday',
> _Velýkos_ 'Easter', _siú:lyti_ 'offer' (exmaples from Zinkevic^ius'
> abridged _Leituviu, kalbos istorija_). If so, this circumflex-
> yielding derivational metatony must have operated at the time when
> Dybo's law wasn't already a must or had ceased to operate at all.

Very many Slavic loanwords with acute in Slavic appear with a Lith.
circumflex, but, as you quote, there are acutes also, and perhaps
more often so in Latvian than in Lithuanian. I guess the loanwords
just are not all equally old. The acuted words you quote look very
old indeed. I would immediately assume that Velýkos is older than
knygà, kny~gaN. The uniformation of unaccented long vowels (and the
like) has then taken part during the influx of Slavic loans.

I do not understand what Dybo's Law has to do with it. That applies
to the Slavic circumflex in Slavic itself; what is it doing here? Did
you mean Saussure's Law? If so, no, SL operated on the result causing
final accent in knygà.

> And, by the way, is it really possible to demonstrate that cases

like

> _re:~kia_ 'shouts' -> _ré:kauja_ 'id. (intensive)',
> _plau~kti_ 'float' -> _pláukioti_ 'id. (iterative)',
> _vil~kas_ 'wolf' -> __vìlke:_ 'she-wolf', _padrai~ko_ 'strews' ->
> _padráikos_ 'strewn straws' can indeed be dated to that earlier

times

> when Lithuanian speakers still didn't mind using this marked throat-
> pressing (as in Low Lithuanian) uneconomic acutes while your

examples

> are for sure of later origin?

There are obvious models for them all. Lengthening in verbs
expressing prolonged action needs no explanation, nor does vrddhi
need justification, since it is known from other IE languages, and
not only as an archaism, but also in many coinings plainly postdating
the disintegration of PIE. Once the models are there, an individual
case can practically always be analogical. But if the same categories
exist in Slavic, are the types not demonstrated to be of at least
common Balto-Slavic age?

> > In conclusion, I would much prefer to regard the "accent
> > properties" of Baltic and Slavic derived words as the only thing
> they
> > can be observed to be, i.e. the effects of analogical copying of
> the
> > base-word. In the terminology of Kurylowicz, one could say that
> > the "forme de fondation" has been utilized in the various "formes
> > fondées" with its full set of properties, including the accent.
>
> It seemes the Balts analogically copied not only specific lexemes,
> but some derivational rules as well -- I mean ablaut series like
> _bré:z^ti_ 'scratch, draw':_brìz^e:s_ 'spring-tooth
>

harrow':_brúoz^as_ 'Strich':_braiz^ýti_ 'draw':_bru:~z^inti_ 'smooth,

> finish (by rubbing)', where ablaut is mostly analogically
> innovational. And what if they analogically copied some accent-
> related rules as well (though I'm not sure what I mean :) )?a

I agree of course that these forms *must* be analogical. Ablaut
sometimes just got out of hand. However, I see no good basis for an
*accent-based* analogy that could create vìlke: out of vil~kas or,
conversely, skir~tas out of skìrtas. In my understanding, métatonis
rude is old length, while métatonie douce is young accentuation. I
disagree very strongly with Kortlandt's doctrine that old plain long
vowels (not based on laryngeals or Winter's Law) have circumflex in
BSl. I believe I find them with acute.

Jens