Re: [Fwd: Re: [tied] Timing of ablaut]

From: Miguel Carrasquer
Message: 26057
Date: 2003-09-27

On Sat, 27 Sep 2003 01:53:48 +0200 (CEST), Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen
<jer@...> wrote:

>On Fri, 26 Sep 2003, Miguel Carrasquer wrote:
>
>> In my analysis, not really.  As you know, I consider the
>> straightforward lengthened grade of the pre-PIE vowels **a and **u to
>> give PIE *o, so that
>> *yé:kWr can only be a straightforward lengthened grade if the original
>> vocalism was **i.  In the case of *yé:kWr, the **i vocalism is
>> confirmed by
>> the alternation *l ~ *y (Germanic liver, Armenian leard), pointing to
>> palatalized *l^ due precisely to *i: in the strong root.  [The weak
>> root, e.g. G. *li:pu-án-a:s should have given *(l/y)ikWnós, preserved
>> in Irish and Slavic in the meaning "fish roe", but otherwise replaced
>> by
>> analogical
>> *yekWnós].
>
>A form *likW-n-ós (supposing there was an /l/, or even a separate
>phoneme /l^/) would be the one to be secondary. It is commonplace for
>Narten forms to be replaced by normal ablaut (short/zero). The
>alternation /e:/ : /e/ does not point to /i/ by any rules for which I
>know any evidence.

I do.

>> I would analyze it as *stah2i- (probably *stah2- + *-i) with the noun
>> forming suffix *-(V)n-: *stah2i-an > *sta:yr.
>
>How did the -i- part get into the picture?

It looks like a root extension.

>Are we back to the old school
>of long diphthong analysis where a /y/ just cut loose from somewhere and
>went on the rampage through the morphology? I have written a book
>against that, so don't expect me to accept it. Except for cases of
>analogical spread of a type, long diphthong roots have the long variant
>underlyingly, meaning that the y-forms are not extensions of shorter
>forms, on the contrary the short alternants are reductions of the full
>forms.

Not in this case. *stah2- "to stand" does not alternate with *stah2i-,
AFAIK. *stah2i- (or *stah2y-) is an altogether different root (although
based on *stah2-).

>> But not all -no stems come from earlier -mno-.  If I may quote "The
>> noun in
>> Biblical Armenian". p. 834: "A suffix *-no- has at least two potential
>> sources: it may represent the thematicization of a basic stem or word
>> form
>> ending in *-n (origial n-stem or heteroclitic), or it may be a
>> secondary derivative of a *-men- stem, i.e. *-mno- > *-no-".  Now if
>> stéa:r is from a
>> heteroclitic **stah2i-(a)n-, as I argued above, then **stah2i-nos/
>> *stah2inah2 is a thematized heteroclitic.
>
>A protoform *staH2ynV- should be metathecized to *stayH2nV- and so
>produce a Balto-Slavic acute, but Slavic ste^na has circumflex; it also
>reflects radical accent just as a regular o-infix form *stóy-na-H2 with
>regular loss of the laryngeal should.

Wouldn't a form *sta:inV- also give circumflex?

>> >It is also part of the evidence
>> >that the same root forms Slavic te^sto and OIr. taes, Welsh toes
>> 'dough' pointing to *taisto- which may be a perfect superlative of an
>> adjective, IE *táy(H)-isto- 'most compact' showing that any a-timbre
>> seen in forms
>> of
>> >this root does not have to come from the laryngeal, for the root had
>> /a/ itself. -
>>
>> I would argue that the /a/ timbre comes from *h2 (*stah2i-t >
>> *staih2t-), cf. also Greek staís/staîs, staitós "dough" (Boisacq also
>> connects OHG deismo, OE thae:sma as *tais-tm-).
>
>You obviously would, but there is no need for that, as I have shown. I
>have suggested that the Greek form is the corresponding comparative
>*stáyH3-is '(something) more compact, relatively compact', a formation
>nice to see alongside the superlative.

I don't accept unmotivated /a/.

>> >I do not see how *stih2ah2 can be derived from *steh2-.
>>
>> **stah2-y-áh2 should have given *sth2i(y)ah2, but perhaps also, with
>> metathesis, *stih2ah2.
>
>If this is from 'stand',

It isn't.

>I really do not find the deletion of aspiration
>in a protoform *stH2iaH2- probable, especially since it is not
>phonetically regular and all other forms of 'stand' have generalized the
>aspiration on the basis of the antevocalic zero-grade. Also Skt. chyáti
>'severs' shows aspiration, pointing to absence of metathesis in
>*sk^H2i-é-ti, a structure of precisely the kind you are dealing with. So
>I think you could have only "sth(i)ya:-" from the morphological
>structure you are envisaging.

The fact is that we have *sti(:)a:, from which the verb *stya:-ye- is
derived.

>None of this of course *proves* that my analysis of the verbal
>stem stya:ya- as *stiH3-oye- is correct. It could also be a stative
>*stiH3-e-H1-yé- (via *-o-H1-yé-?) from an adjective *stiH3-o- if that
>exists. What we need is of course an example that *does* reflect a
>structure *-H3-éye- (root-final laryngeal three + suffix *-éye-), so
>that we can see what *does* come out of pre-PIE *-H3-e- in Sanskrit.
>Both anas- and apas- can have syllables closed by laryngeals, and avi-
>is apparently an example of the wrong type.
>
>Then I see no valid positive evidence for a distinction between /H3e/
>and /o/ in the way Brugmann's law works in Indo-Iranian.

You would't.

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