From: fournet.arnaud
Message: 52814
Date: 2008-02-12
----- Original Message -----
From: "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2008 1:07 PM
Subject: [Courrier indésirable] [tied] *a/*a: ablaut
> There are a number of PIE stems which present clear evidence for *a/*a:
> ablaut, and in which the presence of an internal laryngeal is unlikely
> or impossible. Roots with this ablaut typically distinguish the "strong"
> grade *a: and the "weak" grade *a (though their distribution may be
> disturbed by analogy) but have no zero grade. Let me discuss a
> characteristic example:
>
> *wa(:)g^- 'break (hit, smash, etc.), get broken' is listed as *weh2g(^)-
> in LIV, but the analysis of the vowel quality as due to laryngeal
> colouring is anything but satisfactory. A root like *//weh2g^// could be
> expected to produce zero-grade derivatives with *uh2g^- and some o-grade
> forms like perf. *we-woh2g^-e. No such forms are attested anywhere. We
> have the Gk. present (*w)ágnu:mi 'I break' and perf. éa:ge 'is broken' <
> *we-wá:g^-e, Skt. vájra- < *wág^-ro- 'thunderbolt' (a substantivised
> adjective). Forms like *wag^- should not exist at all, as there is no
> way they could be derived from any allomorph of *//weh2g^//. Such
> inconvenient forms, which LIV explains away, one by one, as "analogical
> innovations", are found in several branches, while the expected reflexes
> of *woh2g^- and *uh2g^- don't occur at all.
================
I consider wa(:)g to be the same root as wra(:)g "to break" (infix -r-)
Greek has Freg-numi : errôga-.
Hence no problem with w(r)_H2-g
LIV is right.
Bad example.
Arnaud
=============>
> Similar difficulties beset adjectives like Lat. glaber, Slavic *gladUkU
> 'smooth'. If the latter reflects *gHlah2dH-u-, where does the short /a/
> of <glaber> and OHG glat come from? The zero grade of *-lah2- would be
> *-l.h2-, which would have given Latin -la:- and Germanic -ul-.
Then we have nouns like *wá:stu- 'dwelling, settlement' (Ved. vá:stu-,
Toch.A
> was.t, B ost) ~ wástu- (Gk.(w)ástu); the variants look like relicts of
> an acrostatic paradigm with *a/*a: ablaut, and again a reconstruction
> like *wah2stu- can't account for the existence of forms with short *a,
> or the conspicuous absence of a zero-grade *uh2.
> Piotr
=============
These examples have over-complex morphology,
so that we can't control what's going on.
In the case of wastu, Semitic b_?-t "house" is a potential cognate.
*b_?-t > PIE w_?-t + tu > *w_?-s-tu
This example is dubious.
I think I would consider C1-a-C2-v-
in the first place with two unvoiced consonants.
you can add s- before and -r- -l- infixes
if you think necessary.
Do you have examples with only p t k s ?
and a clear : C_a_C_Vowel structure.
Arnaud