Re: [TIED] Ablaut and grammar.

----- Original Message -----

From: Mark Odegard

To: cybalist@egroups.com

Sent: Sunday, June 11, 2000 8:51 PM

Subject: [TIED] Ablaut and grammar.

It isn't so much the difficult consonant group as the "asyllabic" realisation of the root that seems to have been really disfavoured. The form *bd-os was not unusual as the second element of compounds (as in Skt. upabda-). Forms like *n-bdos 'footless' or *tri-bdos 'three-legged' seem perfectly possible -- or at least there is some precedent for them. As soon as I find a little time to spare I'll post some examples of full grammatical paradigms with the complete range of attested alternations.

 

Piotr

 

 

Mark wrote:

Where the zero grade caused our would have cause difficult consonant groups, the vowel was either not lost at all or soon restored. In the case of *ped- 'foot', for example, the gen. s. *pd-ós (i.e. *bdós) was hardly in use for very long.

 

It is only in very rare cases that a paradigm 'torn apart' by ablaut is preserved, or at least fragmentarily.