Re: [tied] Ablaut and accent

From: Glen Gordon
Message: 21118
Date: 2003-04-20

Miguel:
>>When you finally accept an intermediary "penultimate accent"
>>stage for Old/Mid IE (proven by alternations like *?es-t-i versus
>>*?s-ent-i)
>
>The *-i, as a later addition, does not count for the accent

If you were following what I'm saying, you'd know that I know this
already. I didn't say that it _did_ count. Yes, the indicative *-i
_is_ a later addition, a deictic applied late in IE.

Before that, the imperfect 3pp was *-ent... but *-ent is the result
of an even earlier accented ending *-en followed by the deictic
*t& (> *to-) that attached to both the 3ps and 3pp. So that leaves
us with 3ps *-e and 3pp *-en. We now arrive at early Late IE but
simple deduction.

Now the accent difference is the result of the penultimate stage
just before this, where 3ps was *-e and 3pp was *-ene. The ending
originally stole the accent from the stem simply by the trivial
fact that the suffix was disyllabic, a single lost vowel obscures
the entire accent pattern. This is such an efficient solution for
the accent shifts in general and how it came to be that IE has
a mobile accent that I can't imagine anything more explanatory.


>so *h1�s-t(i) ~ *h1s-�nt(i) actually proves _ultimate_ accent in
>these forms, as expected in a root verb.

It's ultimate only because of the loss of unstressed vowels,
including in final position in late Mid IE. Naturally, the
penultimate accent becomes an ultimate one in words with a lost
final vowel.


>There were several accentual types in PIE,

Of course currently, beyond what I offer, there is no logical
explanation to explain all of them at once. More likely, it involves
more than one explanation to cover the wide possibilities. My
solution covers the hystero- and protero-dynamic patterns
(including also the "ultimate" pattern) all at once by the mere
addition of a lost final vowel where appropriate. Clearly since the
acrostatic pattern is suspiciously regular in comparison to the
other patterns, it is a recent levelling. So we've covered the most
common alternations just with Mid IE penultimate accentuation.

I don't have to explain everything with one solution. It should
suffice that I can explain the MOST with my solution, better than
any other logical solution presently available. And my theory does
just that so I don't feel embarrassed to assert that, yes, there was
a penultimate accent stage in an earlier stage of IE.


- gLeN


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