Re: [tied] Laryngeal theory as an unnatural

On Thu, 06 Feb 2003 03:01:09 +0000, "Glen Gordon"
<glengordon01@...> wrote:

>
>Miguel:
>>Because none of the roots in question beginning with, say, *ma-
>>show any evidence of ever having had a laryngeal (none of them
>>have zero grade forms with /i/ in Indo-Iranian). On the other
>>hand, for some of them it's easy to identify an e-grade counterpart:
>
>What generally accepted linguistic process would explain a
>change of *mo to *ma? (And please don't invent one of your own!)
>Additionally, what other languages demonstrate a similar change?

As I explained earlier, the change was actually /a:~/ > /a/ (as
opposed to non-nasalized /a:/ > /o/). You can compare West-Germanic
*bra:~hta, *þa:~hta > German/Dutch bracht(e), dacht(e) (as opposed to
/a:/ > /O:/ > /uo/ in *ma:ter- > moeder, Mutter).

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