Latin medial voicing of *p,*k & *t before penultimate?

From: Glen Gordon
Message: 27348
Date: 2003-11-17

Piotr said a few posts ago:
>*wik^- > *w(i)g^- > *wdz- > *dzw- > *dz^- > z-
>
>This is strangely reminiscent of Latin vi:ginti:, with /g/ from *k^.

I started thinking about that and when I thought about all I
knew about Latin... not much :)... it seems almost like medial stops
were voiced before a strict penultimate accent in a pre-Latin stage.
Am I wrong?

The word /quadra:ginta:/ "forty" has voiced both former *t and
*k to /d/ and /g/. Both stops occur before a penultimate accent,
while the ultimate syllable /-ta:/ has /t/ perserving the voicelessness,
because it's after the penultimate accent.

I look at /vi:ginti:/. Same thing. The *k is voiced to /g/ before
the penultimate syllable. So I begin to wonder how widespread this
is and whether that can't explain some things.

Could /sanguis/ relate to that idea? Could it be that it actually
was an adjectival noun, derived from, let's say, earlier *sank�is
"sacred", in turn based on the n-infixed form of the IE root
*sak- (cf. /sanctus/)? Since the accent was after *k (here on
*u) *k was voiced to /g/.

Could it explain /bibere/ as well from *pipehW-? Again, voicing
of medial *p before accent, producing *pib�:se, and then
/bibe:re/ due to assimilation? That would negate the arguement
that *h3 must be voiced based on items like these.

Maybe it would also explain the particle /ab/ "away", /ob/
"toward" and /sub/ "under", accentless themselves with voicing
due to original *p being before the accent of the following word.

Is this an actual rule in pre-Latin? If not, why not?


= gLeN

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