Re: [tied] PIE Stop System

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 25991
Date: 2003-09-24

24-09-03 05:04, Glen Gordon wrote:

> On the other hand, one idea I have to explain it involves possible
> early Late IE rules of syllable shape vis-a-vis laryngeals. If we
> reconstruct *mu:hs "mouse" in the nominative, *u is long as all
> vowels are in the nominative form, while the presence of *h ensures
> that *u always appears long in other case forms. The realization
> of an accented *u here then can be explained as the product of
> an early Late IE nominative *mouh-s& becoming in this special
> case *mu:h-s, rather than **mo:uh-s due to the presence of the
> laryngeal which would otherwise make the one syllable unusual
> in its spoken length and complexity. Thus this etymon might be
> the result of syllable restructuring and simplification.
>
> I suspect that this same syllable restructuring might be to blame
> for other otherwise unsolvable oddities in IE morphology.
>
> Thoughts?

That's almost identical with my own solution (published 1998, and
dealing with "other otherwise unsolvable oddities" as well). It may or
may not be correct, but at least I have some company now :)

Piotr