From: Miguel Carrasquer
Message: 16069
Date: 2002-10-08
>--- In cybalist@..., Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:Well, either historically circumflex (at a time when Greek may have
>> On Mon, 07 Oct 2002 20:08:40 -0000, "Richard Wordingham"
>> <richard.wordingham@...> wrote:
>> What does it mean to be _underlyingly_ acute or circumflex?
>Saussure's law is
>> a soundlaw (or supra-soundlaw, if you will), so there must have
>been something
>> physical to cause the accent shift.
>
>One could ask what an 'underlying circumflex' is in Greek(?) -
>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/15812 :)
>An 'underlyingly circumflex' syllable would be one that would beI.e., underlyingly in a mobile paradigm.
>circumflex if it were to receive the accent, e.g. the first syllable
>of krau~jas, which has nominative plural kraujai~.
>You point out that 'there must have been something physical'.Yes.
>However, it need not still exist, and it appears that Saussure's law
>has now been grammaticalised.
>I had been basing my understanding on the following statement inNot at the time that e.g. Saussure's and Leskien's (acute final syllable
>Lockwood's 'Indo-European Philology':
>
>'Accents are used in philological works since the type of accent
>varies and is not bound to a particular syllable. The accent is
>predominantly one of stress. If the stressed vowel is short it is
>marked with a grave: _galvà_ 'head'. Stressed long vowels have
>either a falling or rising intonation...'
>
>As Lockwood only mentions intonation differences in _stressed_
>syllables, and Classical Greek only (contrastively) distinguished
>intonation in stressed syllables with long nuclei, I assumed that the
>same applied to Lithuanian.
>An interesting thought occurs to me - has a stress differenceThat doesn't seem work for the Ipl. ran~komis ~ galvomìs, where in the mobile
>*rankómus v. *galvomùs been replaced by a difference ran~koms v.
>galvóms?