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

On Thu, 15 Nov 2001 00:29:33 +0100, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
<mcv@...> wrote:

[PG:]

>>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.

Having done that, I won't: in general, both *-men and *-mn retain
their *-n.

Apparent cases of *-m(e)r could for instance represent underlying
*...m-wer, *...m-wen- (verbal noun in *-wer/*-wen-). As shown by
*twe, *swe vs. *me, PIE *mw > *m.


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