Re: [tied] Texts in PIE

From: Glen Gordon
Message: 21070
Date: 2003-04-17

David:
>Why are both a schwa and the H used for laryngeals?

I presume that they are writing syllabic laryngeals as &1/&2/&3 and
consonantal laryngeals as h1/h2/h3. Thus, *pxte:r "father" is *p&2te:r
in their notation. No biggy.


>What does a j (the i with the half-circle under it) following a vowel
>represent;

It's just a demented way of writing the semivocalic consonant *y.


>What is the t with the superscript h?

Good question. I suppose they feel the need to create *tH simply because
*dH otherwise lacks a voiceless counterpart. Perhaps it's inspired by
instances of /th/ in Sanskrit. That's my guess. In fact, looking at
the second line */?nohWmn toi yagyetHo:d/, I'd say that they presume the
2p of the imperative was *-tHo:d (again, evocative of 2p singular endings
in Sanskrit) but misapplied it to "your name" which should be 3p anyway.
Or did I miss something? Shouldn't it be */?no:mn toi yagyetu/??


>What's the edh doing in the last word of the fourth line?

A shameless anachronism. The stem is actually *dHgHom- (Hittite /tekan/).


>In the last line, is H2ojuH1sont one word or two?

Looks like they made a compound out of *xoiu- "age" and *?sont "truth"...
What? "Age-truth"?? I don't get it. Is it supposed to be "forever"? Damn,
I can't remember the Lord's Prayer that far down (I usually just fell
asleep at that point... hehehe).


>Finally, would H1esti at the very end be the translation of "amen?"

No. It is simply the present 3ps "he/she/it is" -- *?esti. I think they
forgot about "Amen" so let me be the first to translate it: *?Estu.


- gLeN


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