On Tue, 13 Jan 2004 01:00:11 +0100, Mate Kapovic <
mkapovic@...> wrote:
>And what is your explanation for Greek potnia < *potnih2 and the like in
>which it is presumed it was really *potnyh2 in Greek and *h2 > -a which is
>here short as in sphaira, melitta etc. where we clearly have *-Cy- and
>short -a < *-h2, not -e:/a: < *-eh2.
Yes, *h2 and *h3 behave that way in Greek (and Tocharian). The point,
however, is that *h1 never does:
*yh2 > ya: (-ya in final position)
*yh3 > yo:
*yh1 > i:
I see that Jens has explained osse as *okWih1 > okWi: + -e > *okWye > osse,
with analogical -e added to regular -i:. That's of course another
possibility.
Now the Greek dual -e *can* be explained as coming from vocalized *h1 (even
if *-ye in osse cannot come from *-yh1). However, the Lithuanian dual -e
cannot come from *h1. The only form that explains both is *-e.
The question is: what if anything is the relation between the "normal" dual
ending *-ih1 and the *-e that we find in Greek and Lithuanian?
I already gave *my* explanation: lengthening of final syllables in svarita
position in pre-PIE under certain circumstances, whereby:
**a ~ **a: > o (e.g. h2ák^-mon-, &2k^-mén-os)
**u ~ **u: > wo (e.g. ptc.pf.act. '-wot-, -ús-os)
**i ~ **i: > ye:
So *xWákW-i:h1 > *h3ókWye:h1 > *h3ókWye (besides e.g. end-stressed
*dak^mt-íh1 > *-dk^m.tíh1). I'm not sure if the loss of *-h1 after long
/e:/ is regular or a sandhi-variant that became generalized. Unstressed
**-ye: gave *-ye (**-ye would have given *-i). Except in a form like osse,
*-ye was usually simplified to *-e, both in Greek and Lithuanian (can't
tell in Old Irish).
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...