Re: [tied] Laryngeal theory as an unnatural

From: Miguel Carrasquer
Message: 18227
Date: 2003-01-28

On Tue, 28 Jan 2003 01:54:31 +0000, "Glen Gordon"
<glengordon01@...> wrote:

>There's a difference between failing to see my point (which I don't
>have a problem with) and repeatedly either failing to understand what
>I've just said

I understand what you say. I just don't think you are correct.

>or using complete irrelevancies like his **pk^wos based
>solely on Armenian

No. Read what I said.

>However, that being so, there were instances where the loss of
>unstressed vowels was resisted

So what are the rules?

>. The paradigmatic strengthening rule is
>the exception to the loss of unstressed vowels in Mid IE. Therefore, *e
>in *pedos "of the foot" should be seen as the result of preservation of
>the Mid IE unstressed schwa (written below as *e).
>
> "strengthening"
> MIE *pet: > *pat: > *pad-s& > PIE *po:ts [nom]
> MIE *pet:ase > *p&t:as > *pedas > PIE *pedos [gen]
>
> in contrast to lack of strengthening in:
>
> MIE *kewane > *kwan > *kwan-s& > PIE *kwo:ns [nom]
> MIE *kewenase > *kunas > *kunas > PIE *kunos [gen]
>
>There was no threat in the latter paradigm of the root becoming
>asyllabic anywhere in the paradigm because the unstressed portion of
>the weak cases, MIE *kewen-, naturally becomes syllabic *kun-. However,
>in the paradigm of *pod-, the unstressed MIE weak case root *pet:- would
>have normally become asyllabic **pd-. Since this would cause obscurity,
>strengthening occured and the schwa was preserved, becoming *e in Late
>IE.
>
>The same law operates on countless other stems where asyllabification
>of the root in weak cases would have normally occured, such as the
>paradigm of *wodr "water" (gen *wedn-os)

There is no reason in your theory why this should not have given
*udnos. Cf. the collective root *udó:r, *udéns.

>or that of *peku "herd" (gen *pekeu-s).

The genitive of *pek^u is not **pek^eus! *pek^u belongs in
Szemerényi's "subsidiary type" of the i/u declension, with G. *-wós
(*-wés).

Rather than proposing arbitrary exeptions to the zero-grade rule, it
seems to me that the preservation of *e in the oblique root can be
directly linked to presence of *o in the strong cases. We have
oblique *ped- because of strong *pod- "foot". Likewise *g^onu obl.
*g^enw- "knee", *dom- obl. *dem- "house", *wodr obl. *wedn- "water",
*nokWt- obl. *nekWt- "night", *h2orln- obl. *h2arln- "eagle, bird",
*h2ostHi obl. *h2astHn- "bone", *doru obl. *derwos "tree", etc. The
same when the accent falls on the second syllable: *dhg^hom- ~
*dhghem- "earth", *ghyom- ~ *ghyem- "winter", *h1dont- ~ *h1dent-
"tooth", *udor-, *uden- "water".

When the vowel of the strong stem is *e, the oblique has zero: *sem-
obl. *sm- "one", *pek^-u obl. *pk^w- "cattle", *h2akmon- obl.
*&2k^men- "stone", *g^heimon- obl. *g^himen- "winter", *pah2wr, obl.
*ph2wen- "fire", *melit obl. *mlit- "honey"; with final accent:
*p&2ter- obl. p&2tr-, *h2ner-, obl. *&2nr- "man", etc.

The conclusion is than that we have Ablaut *e ~ 0 besides Ablaut *o ~
*e. This can be explained as earlier stressed **a ~ unstressed *&
besides stressed *a: ~ unstressed *a.

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