Re: [tied] *nepo:t... Somebody's wrong!

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 11105
Date: 2001-11-07

It isn't so much a slip as an occasional case of my penchant for speculation and internal reconstruction getting the better of me. I wish I had chosen a different example. Of course Miguel is right about the available evidence pointing to initial stress in *népo:t-s, though the following reservations should be made:
 
(1) The Germanic word is a secondary nasal stem and so does not reflect *nepo:t-s directly (though it's reasonable to assume that the PGmc. substitute remained faithful to the original stress pattern).
 
(2) The Old Indo-Aryan declension is accentually static, with the first syllable stressed across the paradigm (Germanic shows no Verner variants, so there's no indication of kinetic stress there either). The Greek form is of course isolated and can't testify to any form of stress mobility either.
 
In general, I don't accept the Beekesian reconstruction of PIE accentuation and its prehistory. In particular, I doubt the existence of *CéCo:C(s) as a distinct non-static type (though there are nouns which according to Greek, Germanic or Vedic evidence were stressed similarly to *népo:ts -- *swéso:r, *ték^so:n, *h2ák^mo:n, etc.). I regard the accentuation *C(e)Có:C(-s)/*C(e)CC-ós as historically primary and normal, *CéCo:C(s)/*CéCC-os as secondary and due to the appearance of lexical accent that enforced stress retraction (presupposing an earlier stage with no lexical accent and "normal" stress, except in transparent derivatives of late origin), and *CéCo:C(s)/*CeCóC-m/*CeCC-ós as invented by modern linguists.
 
Piotr
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, November 07, 2001 8:41 AM
Subject: Re: [tied] *nepo:t... Somebody's wrong!

Given OI. nápa:t, Grk. népodes and OE (etc.) nefa, that's surely a slip of the pen on Piotr's part.  There are basically two patterns for the animate non-static nom. sg.: (A) *CéCO:C(s) or (B) *CCé:C(s). *népo:t(s) belongs to type A.