Hi again Jens,
The Sanskrit ending of a-stems is /-a:t/
> whose consonant alternates in sandhi between /-d/ and /-t/
depending on
> whether or not the following word begins with a voiced
segment; since
> original /-t/ and /-d/ alternate the same, the language is
incapable of
> telling us which consonant is really at play here.
Just wanted to say thank you for reminding me the vowel in the
ending is long. I see a long vowel in the ending of a-stems (m/
n), of which, of course, one a should be the thematic vowel, the
other could be a short or a long /a/. I am not closely acquainted
with the actual PIE reconstructs of those endings, but I would
naturally wonder if the /d/ and /t/ alternated in the protolanguage,
as they do in Sandhi in Sanskrit, or if the vowel was originally
long or short, again, since you can hardly see it in Sanskrit (I
guess you get the answers from comparisons with other
languages and I would be happy to know more about this).
I am now trying to switch from a long-standing interest in
synchronic analysis of particular languages to historical
linguistics. I may come to track some time in the near future :-)
Until then I would appreciate any friendly comments of generous
souls, who would want to share their knowledge and experience,
or just wild ideas. This should be the point of this list, or am I
totally wrong?
Eva