On Tue, 27 Mar 2001 15:52:56 +0200, "Piotr Gasiorowski"
<
gpiotr@...> wrote:
>Hittite probably retained a lax/tense distinction (corresponding to voiced/voiceless) intervocalically but there is no evidence of it word-initially.
Nor could there be, given the method employed to mark the distinction,
"doubling" the "consonant". Cuneiform script was [logo-]syllabic,
using signs for V, CV, VC and CVC (but the matrix is sparse in the
case of VC and CVC). To write a word containg an intervocalic fortis,
e.g. /nata/ "not", the Hittite scribes could have used NAT-TA (or
NAD-DA), except that there was no sign for NAT (or NAD), or NA-AT-TA,
which is a possible spelling, or NA-AD-DA, except that AD is the same
sign as AT (in fact, the word was usually written Ú-UL, in Akkadian,
but that's beside the point now). For a lenis consonant, e.g. /peda/
"place", the spelling would not "double the consonant", and the
options are PE-TA (or BE-DA, or BE-TA, or PE-DA). With this system,
it is of course impossible to mark the lenis/fortis distinction
word-initially or finally.
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...