This (stressed) *-tHa- recurs in
Indo-Iranian ordinals, and is completely equivalent to PIE *-to- as regards its
function. I doubt if the aspiration can be reconstructed beyond
Proto-Indo-Iranian, but I have no ready answer to the question how it arose.
*-t-h2-o- is possible but somewhat ad hoc. Aspirated *tH tends to replace
inherited *t in several Indo-Iranian suffixes, e.g. helping to distinguish
deverbal adjectives in *-ta- from similarly formed (and also suffix-stressed)
nouns in *-tHa-: Skt. rik-ta- 'left', rik-tHa-m 'property left to inheritors'.
The underlying morphophonological processes are not very clear (to me at any
rate).
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2001 10:18 PM
Subject: [tied] Re: Swat River.
Why does an
aspirate -tH- appears in *pak-tHa-? Is that some specific development of PIE
*-t- or a completely different formant (from *t-H- or so)?