Re: [tied] Re: [pieml] PIE rhotacism

On Wed, 14 Nov 2001 22:53:06 +0100, "Piotr Gasiorowski"
<gpiotr@...> wrote:

>A few questions:
>
>If *newn can be *newm equally well, what makes you sure that *septm and *dek^m (reconstructed according to similar criteria) had final *-m? It looks like an invitation to opem Pandora's box.

I believe -n and -m (like -d and -t) are impossible to distinguish by
their reflexes (merged or lost). We know that *septm is *septm
because we have *septmós, and for *dek^m(t) the Baltic evidence
(des^imt etc.) is decisive. By the same token, *newn has been
postulated on the basis of e.g. Lat. nonus. You are right that
assuming a development *newn > *newm, because *newn should have given
*newr, contains an element of circularity, but calling that an
invitation to "opem [Freudian typo?] Pandora's box" seems exaggerated.
The development *newn > *newm is plausible, given *septm and *dek^m,
it's just unfalsifiable.

>There are a few other possible counterexamples, e.g. *h2ag^n/*h2ag^o:n (Gk. aga-, ago:n), where, paradoxically, we find *-r- reflected prevocalically in related derivatives, as in <ageiro:>.

My sources (IEW, EIEC) indicate that <ageiro:> is from the root *ger-
"to gather" (*n-ger- ?).

>If *-n changed into *-r, why did it remain *-n in the vocative of animate nouns, e.g. *ték^son, where in was not protected by a following (pre-PIE) *-s?

Not only that, but animate locatives in -n should also have -r.

>Where do locatival adverbs like *ud-en come from?

I'm not sure what you're referring to.

What I'm wondering is where do the locatival pronouns in *-r come
from? (Germanic where, there, Lith. kur~?)

>Why, on the other hand, do we get collectives or *-r/n- stems in *-o:r (*wedo:r, etc.)? You derive them from *-or-h2 -- why not *-o:n < *-on-h2?

Here I think it's pretty clear that the *-h2 was added later. There
were two ways of forming collectives: the "broken plural" kind without
*-h2, and *-(e)h2 without Ablaut.

>Of course analogy can be invoked, operating either way to get the desired output; but it seems you need _massive_ recourse to analogy (which mars the elegance of the phonological account), plus an explanation of why it operated so selectively, generally failing to level out *-r/n- heteroclisy in neuter paradigms.

In the cases of the vocative and the locative I most certainly reserve
the right to invoke analogy: the vocative aligned itself with the
strong forms and the locative (aided perhaps by early affixation of
*-i) with the weak forms.

>You say that rhotacism is blocked after *m "as in *-men". Of course the _suffix_ *-men and all its ablaut variants have persistent *-n. But is it also true of *-m-en, where *-m is part of the base and the stem-forming suffix is *-en? There are clear traces of *-r/n- heteroclisy in the "winter" etymon.

And e.g. the "timber" etymon. Maybe I should change rule to require
the *m to be in direct contact with the *n (as it is in the n.NA
*-mn), but I'd have to go over the evidence once more. In itself, an
occasional form with *-mr for expected *-mn is not a real menace: it's
only to be expected. Hardly any soundchange goes completely
unblocked, and hardly any block is completely impermeable to the
soundchange.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...