Re: Order of Some Indo-Iranian Sound Changes

At 9:13:45 PM on Saturday, February 21, 2009, Andrew
Jarrette wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott"
> <BMScott@...> wrote:

>> At 8:40:55 PM on Saturday, February 21, 2009, Andrew
>> Jarrette wrote:

>>> I've never understood why *tst should become /ss/ (in Gmc,
>>> Latin), [...]

>> It seems pretty straightforward: a likely route would be
>> [tst] > [ts(:)] > [s:]. Both steps essentially just relax
>> a closure, so I see it as a kind of lenition.

> But if /st/ in /tst/ should become [s:], why doesn't /st/
> elsewhere become [s:] in these languages?

Why should it? /tst/ is a very different environment from,
say, /Vst/; the loss of the second /t/ is in effect a sort
of dissimilation.

Brian