Re: [tied] Re: the glottalic theory

From: Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen
Message: 16741
Date: 2002-11-14

Guys, you can't mean this. The Danish stød rule is very simple and of no
consequence for IE. The stød is found in words that were monosyllabic in
Old Norse and so corresponds to accent 1 in Swedish and Norwegian.
However, the stød is not found in all old monosyllables, for a the modern
form has to contain a certain amount of sonority to be able to keep the
stød. There must be either a long vowel (that in itself is enough), or a
vowel followed by two consonants the first of which is voiced. Thus, there
is no stød in tak, lap, kat, ven, øl, tal, hul, sted which have short
vowels followed by only a single consonant, nor is there one in mark,
bark, stærk, stork, skarp where the -r- used to be voiceless (and
dialectally still is), but there is one in mæl?k, fol?k, mun?k, bæn?k,
hjæl?p where the sonant was always voiced. A short vowel followed by an
originally long consonant which is now voiced produces stød: van?d, lan?d,
man?d (ON acc. vatn, land, mann). Long vowels have stød: sko?, tå?, fæ?,
sky?, sø?, sne?. Some have a long vowel from a short vowel which was
lengthened in an open syllable in the paradigm: da?g from da:ge, sa?l from
sa:le. Due to later anaptyxis, some are not mosyllabic any more, but still
have the stød: ag?er (akr), fød?der (fø:tr 'feet'), hæn?der (hendr
'hands'). Where the same schwa product has been caused by the weakening of
a full vowel there is no stød: koner (konar 'wives', kalder (kallar
'calls'), hænder (hendir 'occurs'). The vowels of old enclitic article
count as zero, hence stød in venn?en 'the friend', hull?et 'the hole',
even hænd?erne 'the hands'. Some non-adjacent dialects of Sjælland to the
north and south of the Copenhagen standard area agree in having stød also
if a short consonant is followed by a cluster of a voiceless plus a voiced
consonant: sæ'tter (ON setr 'sets'), næ?tter (nettr 'nights'), li?gger
(ligr 'is lying', -gg- being today a voiceless stop). All of this
indicates that the stød is the Danish development of whatever produced
accent 1 in the other languages, and that it was probably once present in
all words that had only one full vowel. Thus, where the Old Norse wordform
is already known, the etymological value of the Danish stød is zero.

Jens