[tied] Re: Etymology of PIE *ph2ter

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ryan" <proto-language@...>
wrote:

>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "etherman23" <etherman23@...>
> To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Sunday, January 01, 2006 5:56 PM
> Subject: [tied] Re: Etymology of PIE *ph2ter
>
>
> <snip>
>
> > Sure, and that's how words like pa and ma keep getting reintroduced
> > into languages. Not sure what your point was.
>
> ***
> Patrick:
>
> Why ma/pa?
>
> Re-introduced??? Never lost in the nuclear family circle is more

like it.

>
> When do you think they originated?

m, p, and a are the first sounds a baby learns to make. So when daddy
heards the baby say "pa" he thinks, "Ooh, my child knows who I am." I
understand that in some cultures the assignment of ma and pa are reversed.

> ***
> Patrick:
>
> What *w, you mean as in *yew-?
>
> ***

I was thinking of *ye as an infix placed into *swe giving **syewe-ro.
Zero grade on the second *e brings the *w in contact with the *r
causing it to be lost with compensatory lengthening.

> > > > Your analysis is a pure figment of your imagination; and has
> > > absolutely no
> > > > justification for anything which one actually finds attested in
> > > (p)PIE (or
> > > > even related languages).
> > >
> > > PPIE isn't attested anywhere. Neither is PIE for that matter. Any
> > > attempt at reconstructing PPIE is necessarily conjectural. My sound
> > > law is simply an attempt to explain the distribution of vowels and
> > > diphthongs in PIE.
>
> ***
> Patrick:
>
> It is *attested by being a reconstruction that conforms within rules

to all

> actually written or spoken forms. I will use validated if attested

offends

> you.
>
> ***

I've never seen attested used in that sense in a linguistic
discussion. It can be confusing.

> <snip>
>
> > We'll the first fact is that *h2 is present in all those family words
> > with the *ter suffix.
>
> ***
> Patrick:
>
> No, *H2 is not present; a formant which lengthens vowels is present,

in the

> case of *ma: and *pa: it is -*h.
>
> ***

Okay, have it your way. The formant is still there regardless of what
you want to call it. Mighty coincidental.

> To me this suggests that it's part of the
> > suffix. The second fact is that high vowels don't appear before
> > resonants.
>
> How about an example or two?

Um. Okay here are all the PIE roots that are well represented that
have a high vowel before a resonant:

> So what happened to them (the the past you've admitted that
> > a vowel system of /a e o/ was typologically unlikely)? Diphthings
> > don't appear before resonants but do appear before non-resonants. Why
> > would that be?
>
> *te:u-mo-
>
> The vowel system was for Nostratic not PIE.

So the root is *te:u. The *-mo suffix was added after the sound law
came into effect.

> ***
>
>
> <snip>
>
> > That's nice. Fortunately I'm always led to my theories because of
> > evidence rather than fantasy.
>
>
> ***
> Patrick:
>
> Well, then, provide some.
>
> ***

See above. We've disagreed on whether we should construct *h or *h2.
However we have agreed that something besides a zero phoneme should be
reconstructed. You haven't produced a single counterexample that
doesn't have either *a: or *&. The laryngeal theory explains both as
coming from *h2. Either *h2 is part of the root or part of the suffix.
If it was part of the root we'd expect forms with any vowel or none,
*e being the most common. If it's part of the suffix we would expect
to find only *a:, *&, and *o: as vowels (with *o: being least likely).
The examples I've adduced all show *a: and *& (and the possible
*nepo:t). You've not produced any counterexamples. The evidence is
quite clear. The *h2ter theory agrees with the data, the *ter theory
requires an additional coincidence of relatively rare phonemes *a: and
*& being common here. Occam's Razor clearly favors my theory.