--- In cybalist@..., Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen <jer@...> wrote:
> Dear P&G, thanks for your comments, I'll respond between the lines:
>
> On Thu, 25 Jul 2002, P&G wrote:
>
> > >On Lachmann's Law
> >
> > If I understand you correctly, Jens, you're suggesting:
> > (1) PIE *ag-tos > *ak-tos
> > (2) within pre-Latin *ak-tos (~ ago) is reconceived as [ag-]+
[tos]
> > whatever its phonological form
> > (3) this reconception means that speakers, conscious of the /g/
in the
> > root, draw out the vowel, hence a:ctus.
>
> Not necessarily precisely that way, it more looks to me that it is
just as
> in English where a vowel is longer before a voiced consonant than
before
> the voiceless counterpart, as ba(:)d vs. bat with a clearly audible
> difference of length. It even applies to diphthongs in English, so
that
> side is a word of much longer duration than site/cite. I guess the
> insertion of the voiced [g] conveyed a similar quantum of
lengthening to
> its preceding vowel, which was retained even after the voived
consonant
> had been devoiced again (gt > kt is so commonplace that it can be
repeated
> any day and any number of times).
Returning to the analysis of the word 'buddha', should one then
envisage the following sequence? Steps 1 to 4 are diachronic.
1. IE bHudH + -to- > bHutto-
2. Pre-Indo-Iranian children don't learn the assimilation:
bHudH + -ta- > bHudHta-
3. Bartholomae's law:
bHudH + -ta- > bHudHdHa-
4. If ever lost, the synchronic rule
d + t > tt
is restored, and similarly for other combinations.
5. Grassman's law and Part 2 of Bartholomae's law:
bHudHdHa- > buddHa-
Synchronically, one then has, in Sanskrit
budH + -ta- > buddHa-
or
bHudH + -ta- > bHudHdHa- > budHdHa- > buddHa-
or even
bHodH + ZERO_GRADE + -ta- > bHudH + -ta- >
bHudHdHa > budHdHa > buddHa
(Isn't dHugbHis instead of *dugbHis taken care of by the remarkable
standard textbook process
dHugH + #bHis > dHugH#bHis > dHuk#bHis > dHugbHis ?)
I think the position that Piotr presents in
(
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/13356) is that we
have forms that could be summed up as, say budM (or {/budh/,
+mandatory_aspiration}), where M = Mandatory but Mobile aspirate. We
then get, ignoring WLOG the issue of vowel gradation:
budM + -ta- > buddHa (rule : dM + t > ddH)
bodM + -sy- + -ati > botMsyati > bHotsyati (aspirate + s forbidden)
dugM + bHis > dugMbHis > dHugbHis (adjacent aspirates forbidden)
Presumably Piotr is saying that the simple truth is ugly.
What is the argument for saying that the zero grade root is indeed
the best form to cite as the basic allomorph? The (European)
textbooks I've read usually say that the Indian grammarians made the
wrong choice here. Were they just stuck with the choice once it had
been made? After all, a major reform of English spelling would be an
international nightmare! Incidentally, the root 'vyas/vis.' I gave
as an example in the original question seems to be a hallucination -
substitute 'svap/sup'.)
Regards,
Richard.