Re: [tied] Re: Bangani

On Thu, 29 Aug 2002 17:01:12 +0200, Piotr Gasiorowski
<piotr.gasiorowski@...> wrote:

>> Does *k^at- have a problem? I thought we could write PIE with only e/o/e:/o:/& vowels,
>> but how do we render *k^at? ...
>
>I'm not a laryngeal purist. "Non-larygeal" *a doesn't take part in any ablaut alternations,
>but I see no reason why it shouldn't have existed as a phoneme (it certainly existed as a
>very distinct allophone of *e). There are words like *k^aso- 'hare; grey' which seem to require
>*a, and I somehow don't feel that reconstructions like *dah2iwer- of *g^Hah2ns- are all that
>superior to *daiwer- and *g^Hans-. Miguel thinks some instances of *a reflect an old nasalised
>vowel. Whether he's right or wrong, there may have been more sources of *a than are dreamt
>of in Beekes.

Another source of *a are *e's after a velar (uvular) *k, *g, *gh, but judging by
Skt. s'átru- "enemy", we're dealing with a palato-velar (velar) here (setting
aside -- as erroneous or as borrowed -- Pokorny's suggestion of Slavic kotora ~
kotera "Streit, Kampf").

The nasalized option just might work here, if we compare *k^ent- "stechen" (Grk.
kéntron "thorn"; késtron "pointy iron", késtros "arrow", kestra: "Spitzhammer"
(*k^ent-tro-) etc., with Celtic, Germanic and Baltic cognates. Arrows and
pointy objects are an essential part of the fighting business.


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