--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Mate Kapoviæ <mkapovic@...> wrote:
>
> On Sri, sijeèanj 17, 2007 6:55 pm, mcarrasquer reèe:
> > The laryngeal has nothing to do with the lengthening.
> >
> > We have a root *trawH- (or *s'law-), which is lengthened to
*tra:wH-
> > (*s'la:w-) by a process known as vr.ddhi (in this case, late
Balto-
> > Slavic vr.ddhi, as shown by Lithuanian s^love:, not *s^luove:).
> >
> > The laryngeal, in my view, is significant only for the
syllabification
> > of the lengthened form (*tra:w-HaH vs. *s'la:-waH), which
subsequently
> > determines the development of the accentuation in Slavic (travá
vs.
> > sláva).
>
> Why complicate, Miguel? Is it not possible that vrddhis got
automatic
> acute at one stage and automatic circumflex at another stage in
> Balto-Slavic?
My aim is not to complicate :-) Rather, it is to formulate a
testable solution. I didn't invent this theory to explain the
difference in accentuation between trava and slava, but I'm happy to
see that it works for this, too. The way to falsify my theory would
be to find examples of lengthened roots of the shape ..VRH and ..VR
which do not obey the principles laid down. I haven't found any so
far, but maybe I wasn't looking hard enough.
> I don't get the idea that both pro-acute and pro-circumflex fans
promote
> that every vrddhi from PIE till Common Slavic must have the same
> accentuation.
I agree. The verbal forms cited by Dybo and mentioned by me more than
once (skakati etc.) show that the lengthening in these iterative je-
verbs certainly resulted in circumflex length, where possible (i.e.
if the vowel was /e/ or /a/, since the lengthening apparently took
place at a time when no circumflex /i~/ and /u~/ were available).
I would be in favour of a functional rather than a chronological
explanation, though. The lengthening in the iterative verbs has a
different function than the lengthening in derivative nouns like
trava. The first lengthening is more like "vowel reduplication" (a ->
aa), while the second appears to be real "lengthening" (a -> a:).
Of course it's *possible* that modes of vowel lengthening changed
from one period to another, it's just impossible (or at least darned
difficult) to prove it was so [because it's impossible c.q. darned
difficult to falsify such a theory].