Re: [cybalist] Re: Easter

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 2195
Date: 2000-04-25

 
----- Original Message -----
From: Dennis Poulter
To: cybalist@egroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, April 25, 2000 3:06 AM
Subject: Re: [cybalist] Re: Easter

Dennis wrote:
Isn't the 'rh' of Tyrrhenos rather a case of the Greek sound change /s > h/, written as rho+rough breathing, represented by the /rh/ graphy in the Latin alphabet?
 

 
It is, though it isn't quite regular. In Greek, old *-rs- would have given either -rr- (no rough breathing) or -r- with the compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel (*orso- 'tail, arse' > orro-, ouro- depending on the dialect). Perhaps *turseno- was borrowed too late to undergo the regular changes in the same way as the inherited lexical stock, but I'm not sure about the details. The word seems to have been treated like a compound. I'll give it more thought yet. Maybe someone on the list has a plausible explanation for the -rrh-.
 
Piotr