[tied] Re: IE thematic presents and the origin of their thematic vo

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...>
wrote:

> Rob wrote:
>
> > But if "true long vowels" are shortened when atonic, shouldn't
> > they then be considered the same as other short atonic vowels?
>
> Old _short_ vowels were simply dropped pretonically.

So then we have the following, according to you (I do not mean that
derisively; I just want to make sure we're on the same page):

**[atonic short vowel] > *[zero]
**[atonic long vowel] > *[atonic short vowel]
**[tonic short vowel] > *[tonic short vowel]
**[tonic long vowel] > *[tonic long vowel]

> > What would cause the supposed "accent attraction"?
>
> The tendency of full vowels to be accented plus the frequent
> preference for initial stress (which may be overridden by other
> tendencies but has to do with the universal demarcative function of
> stress: it is "attracted" by the initial word boundary).

Where do you see a "frequent preference for initial stress" in IE? I
do not see any such thing until the very end (perhaps even only
dialectally).

> > Is there a verb _sva:pjati_ in Vedic?
>
> No, the suffix apophony of the two subtypes of causatives was
> levelled out there (and Brugmann's Law levelled out the
> quantitative contrast in the root), which is why we have Vedic
> sva:p-áya-ti alongside ma:n-áya-ti, but cf. Latin so:pio: and
> Germanic *swo:f-jan- 'lull to sleep'. The originally Narten
> character of the root is also visible in such derivatives as
> iterative *swép-sk^e/o- (Av. xVafsa-) and *swép-no-, where we would
> normally expect nil-grade vocalism.

It seems to me that both the Latin and Germanic forms could very well
be the result of syncope: *swo:péjo: > L _so:pio:_ regularly, and
*swo:péjonom > Germ. *swo:fjanaN regularly. However, these
developments still do not explain the origin of the long vocalism in
the root.

- Rob