[tied] Re: Laryngeal theory as an unnatural

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "alex" <alxmoeller@...> wrote:

> Richard Wordingham wrote:

> That is the problem with the linguist which do not know a

language. They

> are not able to make instant associations, they can just remember

what

> they learned but not more. This is not a reproach, just a prelude

for

> what I will say bellow.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/richard.wordingham/sounds/prep5d_rom.htm

But you have problems remembering the complicated sequence of
developments in Romanian. (So do I, so at least once has Piotr.) A
tool like the Sound Change Applier helps avoid that problem. And if
you don't know whether Latin had /i/ or /i:/ (or /e/ or /e:/) you
can quickly try both. (But it's better not to let others know that
that's what you did - you'll promptly get directed to the on-line
Latin dictionary at
<http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/resolveform?lang=la>. :) And
if you leave the stress mark in, you can often quickly eliminate
alternatives, for you know how the Romanian words are stressed.

> Richard, there is no problem with the vowels; the question there

is just

> of "r" > "n" and what happened first. Did first the word coro:na

became

> curuna and after this became "cununa" or was first the coro:na >
> "*cono:na" and at last, "cununã". This was the only speculation

which I

> made on Obs. 1, not more.

And the disappointing fact is that we can't tell from modern
Romanian.

Richard.