Re: [tied] Catching up again...

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

From: Miguel Carrasquer Vidal

To: cybalist@egroups.com

Sent: Sunday, November 12, 2000 10:44 PM

Subject: Re: [tied] Catching up again...

On Sun, 12 Nov 2000 17:21:04 +0100, "Piotr Gasiorowski"
<gpiotr@...> wrote:

>Ogdoos derives from ogdow-o-, which can scarcely be a reflex of *oktH3-o-s.

But *ok^t@3wos is possible in Greek.

 

You mean pre-Greek. But "@3" is a vowel (> Greek o), not a voiced obstruent, and as such cannot be held responsible for *kt- > -gd-.

 

Do we really need ANY laryngeal here? Why not go the whole hog and take *okto:u at face value? What is the real evidence for a laryngeal in the dual ending?

>The very idea that some of the laryngeals were *distinctively* voiced (non-distinctively voiced ones would not have caused this kind of assimilation) is a Pandora's box opener. Two or three laryngeals are just enough for my taste.

De gustibus...

Scientists are supposed to have a taste for parsimony. Obviously the evidence for "h2" is incontrovertible, and the evidence for "h1" is decent though less direct. But "h3" (as different from "h2") is anything but securely established.

 

Piotr