Re: [tied] Re: Accepted cognates of Arya?

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 12325
Date: 2002-02-10

Indo-Iranian *s generally survived in Indo-Aryan (except in some rather special contexts). Here is (roughly) what happened in Iranian: *s _regularly_ changed into *h except when followed by *n or when followed or preceded by a stop (in combinations like *ps it was the stop that was weakened: *ps > *fs). The combination *sw (Skt. sv) developed into *xW (pronounced like <wh> in Scottish English).
 
PIE *k^ developed into a palatal affricate (like English "ch") in Indo-Iranian. This sound, preserved as an affricate in Nuristani, developed into Indo-Aryan fricative /s'/. The Iranian languages show /s/ for the most part, but Old Persian had a distinct reflex (/รพ/ = "th"). Old Persian also has /s/ for old *k^w (Skt. s'v), while the rest of Iranian has /sp/. These developments were much later than the common Iranian weakening of *s, so that any *s derived from *k^ is preserved in Iranian (being too late to become *h).
 
There is no Iranian process producing an extra *s before stops, though in PIE itself some roots had variants with and without an initial *s- (so called "mobile *s"). Thus, we have *ker-/*sker- 'cut, flay' and *teg-/*steg- 'cover'. This alternation, whatever its origin, was not productive in post-PIE times, and Iranian did not utilise it for its own grammatical purposes. If, for example, <pal-> derives from *par(i)-, and if <s-pal-> is related to it, then <s-> must be some kind of prefix (not that I can recognise it) rather than a phonological excrescence, since PIE *per(i)- does not occur with the mobile *s.
 
Piotr
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: george knysh
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, February 10, 2002 8:02 AM
Subject: Re: [tied] Re: Accepted cognates of Arya?

May I ask a question on something to do with Indic and Iranian linguistics? I understand that Iranic sometimes (always?) drops Indic "s" or substitutes an "h" at the beginning or middle of words. Does Iranic also occasionally add an "s" before certain consonants, like "p" or "k"? Thus "S"kolot (not all agree that the "s" is an affix to a name built on the
personal name Kol (aksai)); or "s"pal- for pal- et sim.?