Re: [tied] Catching up again...

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 4721
Date: 2000-11-14

We're talking about a PIE contraction, Peter, not a Greek one. PIE *o+e > *o:, as in the thematic declension:
 
Nom.pl. *-o-es > *-o:s
Dat.sg. *-o-ei > *-o:i
Gen.pl. *-o-om > *-o:m
 
Miguel says (after Kortlands and Beekes) that Baltic intonations suggest laryngeals in the Nom.du. and the Instr.sg endings. What is actually visible is an originally long (and originally unstressed) vowel which could just as well represent a PIE contraction. The accentuation of final syllables in Balto-Slavic is as predictable as that of Greek penults. It's in non-final syllables that the presence or absence of laryngeals can be deduced from the intonation (e.g. eRHC > e:RC > éRC; eRC
> e^RC).
 
I'd be willing to accept *-h1e (reduced to *-h1 after vowels) as the Nom.du. ending of masculines, based on internal reconstruction (same for all declensions):
 
*pod-h1e
*ph2ter-h1e
*suHnu-h1 > *su:nu:
*wlkWo-h1 > *wlkWo:
 
-- and this is how they are often reconstructed -- but reconstructing *-h3 AND *-h1 with the same function (*-h3 in thematic nouns, *-h1 in athematics) must be diagnosed as a case of acute laryngitis.
 
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
From: petegray
To: cybalist@egroups.com
Sent: Monday, November 13, 2000 9:18 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] Catching up again...

Piotr
> Why not contraction, e.g. *-o: < *-o-e?

Shouldn't that give >-ou< = /u:/ rather than /o:/??

Peter