Re: [tied] Re: Pretonic laryngeals in roots

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 47954
Date: 2007-03-18

On 2007-03-18 16:05, Sean Whalen wrote:

> Not if xWt > tH there as I'm arguing.

But it's <pratara->, not *<pratHara-> (or *<pro:tara->).

> The V was probably originally *e. Vedic often restores *kW where it
> would normally > kY > c in derivatives of *kWo+ (kásya, kíyant-).
> Greek changes e>o in o-stems (*+esyo > -oio). Of course, there's
> also the possibility for e>o after kW sometimes (*kWekWlos > kúklos).
>
Balto-Slavic and Germanic also show forms with *kWo-.

> I think different aspiration rules operated in different languages.
> You've said these don't work after X+syl, but:
>
> PIE *gWer-xW-tro+ 'throat' > Lith gerkle: Grk *bérathrom > bérethron
> / bárathron 'pit'

Also Lith. gurkly~s. Cf. Slavic *gUrdlo-/*z^Irdlo- 'throat' and the
full-grade *z^erdlo- 'river-mouth, abyss'. Slavic and Baltic (like
Indo-Iranian) show no alternation whatsoever either in the initial
consonant of the suffix or in the liquid (Slavic has *-dlo-, which may
be the regular phonetic development of *-tlo-, cf. *setm- > *sedm-,
while Baltic has -kla- < *-tlo-). I wonder if we aren't dealing with a
different root in Greek (or perhaps a merger of two word-families in
Slavic), as it's unusual for *erh3 or *r.h3 to produce Gk. -ara- or -ere-.

It's quite possible that at the time the preaspiration rule operated PIE
laryngeals were not syllabic in the context of /R_C (if they were true
obstruents, their sonority was lower than that of a liquid or nasal). In
that case one doesn't need analogy to accout for Lat. terebrum/terebra
'auger' or Gk. péletHron < *kWélh1-trom. The 'pit' word might be
connected with *gWerh2- (as in *gWr.h2-ú- 'heavy') rather than *gWerh3-
'devour'.

Piotr