Re: [tied] Re: Bog

On Fri, 07 Sep 2001 07:51:44 -0000, "Sergejus Tarasovas"
<S.Tarasovas@...> wrote:

>--- In cybalist@..., Miguel Carrasquer Vidal <mcv@...> wrote:
>> On Wed, 05 Sep 2001 14:23:30 -0000, "Piotr Gasiorowski"
>> <gpiotr@...> wrote:
>> Jens Eldegaard Rasmussen in his article "Winter's Law of Balto-
>Slavic
>> lengthening" concludes that Werner lengthening was blocked by a
>> following sonorant (OCS <ognI> "fire", not *<agnI>), and that it
>> further only took place in the syllable preceding the accent, i.e.
>not
>> under the accent (this would explain *wódr > wod-a) or twice removed
>> from it (*maderós -> Lith. ma~daras, not *modaras). I have some
>> problems with the accent-restriction (BS. e:d- and s:ed- are
>accented
>> on the lengthenes vowel at least in the sg. present forms), but the
>> blocking by a following sonorant (usually -n(-) or -r(-)) seems real
>> enough, and might even account for the case of <voda> (from *wódr,
>> *wednós, after all).
>
>How could that formal blocking rules, in your opinion, be related to
>one of the 'technological' explanations of Winter's law -
>compensational lenghtening after the loss of the glottalic component,
>inherent to PIE 'voiced unaspirated stops' ( <d> being actually /`t/
>etc.

Well, I've been having second thoughts about the glottalic theory for
some time now. Winter's rule is perfectly explicable without recourse
to the glottalic theory: (*b), *d and *g(^/W) are "more voiced" than
their breathy counterparts *bh, *dh and *gh(^/W), and voice can cause
lengthening of a preceding vowel (as it does in English).
In a situation before resonant, there is a tendency for voiced sounds
to become less voiced. A good example is provided by Dutch, where an
immediately following <l>, <n>, <r> or <m> causes devoicing of the
preceding stop or fricative (e.g. lieve ~ lief-lijk "dear"/"lovely",
koning ~ konink-lijk "king/royal", begraven ~ begraf-[e]nis
"bury/burial", verbinden ~ verbint-[e]nis "to unite/union") [in some
cases, a svarabhakti vowel (schwa) has subsequently developed between
occlusive and sonorant].