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 -----
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