From: dgkilday57
Message: 66785
Date: 2010-10-22
>I will copy the relevant citation from Buck in a later posting. Like other attempts at explaining the Italic ss/st-discrepancy, it involves some questionable etymologies. Whether this transfer of aspiration was indeed wider than Indic is an important question. If it was discussed on Cybalist before my time, I would hope that one of the old-timers could point it out. Such a transfer might also explain the peculiar behavior of some Class III weak verbs in Germanic.
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "dgkilday57" <dgkilday57@> wrote:
>
> > Buck's view was that *-dH-t- regularly became *-ddH-, but that in most cases this became *-dt- by analogy with other *-to-formations, and that *-ddH- regularly became Italic *-st-, while *-dt- of course proceeded through *-tt- to Italic *-ss-. It makes sense if we can justify the *-dt- as resulting ONLY when the word in question was still felt to be participial.
>
> What reason is there to think dHt > ddH ever happened in Italic? The only thing I remember is that the Indic changes were felt to be PIE, part of the older theories which put too much emphasis on Indic ev., age, etc. (still felt today, while more important Indo-Iranian ev. is ignored).
> The only explanation is that dHt > st then opt. > ts > ss there, like in many other IE branches (among other changes I've mentioned).I would have to be a phonological hippie to buy into the notion of "optional soundlaws". No rocket science is required to see that any word in any language could be derived from any word in the same or any other language, merely by tailoring the "optional soundlaws" to achieve the desired result. Philology would collapse into anarchy. While Buck's examples are questionable, I think his approach is correct for explaining this type of problem.