--- In cybalist@..., Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:
> On Mon, 25 Nov 2002 14:47:12 -0000, "Richard Wordingham"
> <richard.wordingham@...> wrote:
>
> >... item 18 in
> >Miguel's account of PIE consonant stems at
> >http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/16501 .
> I explain the l/n heteroclisis from earlier (certainly not recent!)
> **-ln-: in the Auslaut *-ln > *-lr, and then probably *-ll > *-l,
> while in the Inlaut *-ln- is still present in Slavic slUnIce <
> *suln-iko-), but was mostly assimilated to -ll- (Greek <he:lios>,
not
> *<he(:)ilos>) > -l- (which can of course also be analogical after
the
> NA) or -nn- (Germanic *sunn-o:n) > -n- (as in the Avestan genitive).
I'm a tad queasy at having to reconstruct Torsten, but here goes.
Like Tolkien's languages, PIE moves along two timelines. One,
spanning millennia, is its ancient development, though here it is
better to call it pre-Indo-European then Proto-Indo-European. The
other, measured in centuries, is that of it changing reconstruction,
which also has many dialects (voiceless aspirates, number of velar
series, extent of laryngeals, etc.) and several spelling conventions.
When Torsten said the 'sun' word had _recently_ become heteroclitic,
I believe he was referring to the latter, reconstructors' time line.
A generation ago, brief descriptions of PIE and its group did not
mention heteroclisis in the word for 'sun'. For example, Onions'
Oxford Etymological Dictionary refers to 'l' and 'n' extensions for
the word; it gives the Gothic as something like 'sauil' or 'sauils'
(I don't remember which) and says nothing about oblique cases
having 'n'. It doesn't quote the Avestan cognate.
I believe that Torsten therefore reasonably saw the reconstruction of
a heteroclitic declension for the word, as opposed to two similar
synonyms, as a recent change in the reconstruction of PIE.
Torsten, please write! Have I understood you?
I'm now getting confused by what Miguel's reconstruction (n.s.
*sah2wal, g.s. *sh2[wé|ú][l|n]s) actually means. Is it merely the
consonant stem form, co-existing with other formations?
The suggestion of pre-Germanic -ln- > -nn- bothers me slightly; I
though we had PIE *kl.ni- 'hill' > Germanic *hulli- (OE hyll, at any
rate) 'do.', Latin collis 'do.'.
Richard.