Re: [tied] Grimm and Verner

On Mon, 17 Dec 2001 01:31:50 +0100, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
<mcv@...> wrote:

>Now if indeed Proto-Germanic combined a stress accent on the first
>syllable with pitch tone in the rest of the word, we would get:
>
>*'ma:tè:r vs. *'paté:r, resulting in:
>
>*'mo:the:r vs. *'phad(h)e:r, where /t(h)/ + high tone > /dh/ or /d/
>[breathy to modal voice], and finally:
>
>mo:þar vs. fadar.
>
>For the other positions (word final, third-syllable), we can imagine
>that Proto-Germanic perhaps utilized a rising tone to mark word
>boundaries (as is the case in e.g. Bambara) [i.e. contours:
>*\ma:\te:r/, *\pa/te:r/]

So why was PIE *d > PGmc. *t not affected by voicing in a high-tone
environment, one might well ask... Well, because it was unaspirated
and glottalized, and thus already "high-pitched" by itself.
(Presumably, /d/ passed on the high pitch (as opposed to lower pitched
/dh/) to the following vowel when it became /t/ in Germanic, and thus
*always* occurred in a high-tone environment: truly
Punjabi-in-reverse, considering that in P. /dh/ passed on the low
pitch to the following vowel when it became /t/).

I wonder if there are any "Punjabi" or "reverse-Punjabi" effects in
Greek or Balto-Slavic accentuation?

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