On Fri, 07 Feb 2003 00:26:05 +0000, "Glen Gordon"
<
glengordon01@...> wrote:
>Miguel:
>>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).
>
>Pre-IE nasalization. Granted. You seem to also be implying that
>this nasalization was both an anticipatory and progressive change
>of the vowel like that of laryngeals. (Both *xe & *ex > *xa & *ax)
Well, it's not as simple as that, far from it. The problem of /a/ is
a tough and subtle one, and simple rules do not apply.
>Given the latter assumption, instances of *mo and *no should be
>unexpected as well as occurences of *om and *on. Afterall, they
>should have all become *ma/*na and *am/*an. Please explain the
>following small sample of counterexamples:
>
> *-mon-
> *-kontx "-ty; decad"
> *domo- "house"
> *-om [gen.pl]
> *kmtom "100"
> *-ont(i) [3pp]
The only claim I made in my last post was for an Anlaut development
**má:- > *má- (instead of expected *mó-). I'm pretty sure it doesn't
apply to **na:- (> *no-). It also clearly doesn't apply to unstressed
**a: (*o) or to thematic *o. I'm not sure about **-má:- in internal
position.
There are cases of internal /á/ which may be explained as nasalized
**á:~, with the nasalization caused by a _following_ /m/ or /n/
(standard example: *g^hans-), and the conditioning there seems to be,
at least, that the nasal must be followed by yet another consonant
(possibly in the situation _before_ zero grade). Before a fricative,
the nasal is sometimes retained (*g^hans-, *dansos), before stops, it
appears to have disappeared (*labh-, *swad-), although there are
exceptions to the first rule (*k^as-, *nas-?).
The tentative rules I would formulate for now are:
1. **má:- > *má-
2. **-á:NC- > *-á(n)C-
The only relevant counterexample is *(d)k^omt-h2, the collective of
*dék^mt "10", where the /m/ and the /t/ possibly were not adjacent in
pre-zero-grade PIE (*d&ká:m&t-?).
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...