From: elmeras2000
Message: 26134
Date: 2003-09-29
--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "P&G" <petegray@...> wrote:
Sorry to have caused confusion (I did post a correction immediately
after when I noticed my annoying "closed" for "not closed" applying
to the 1st syll. of ápas-).
Sure, you did not address ápas-/opus, but then I wonder what else
your staunch belief can be based on. There is *very* little evidence
one way or the other. So if somebody says he can decide the matter
it is the only natural thing to assume that he has an opinion about
ápas- that allows for the decision he wants to defend.
To accept such items as ávi-s, ápas- and ánas- as evidence you
*must* assume they have an open first syllable. That is correct for
ávi-, wrong for ánas-, and unsettled for ápas-. The one for which it
is correct can be discredited as irrelevant on two counts: a short
vowel may have been generalized from the weak cases which have ávy-
before vocalic endings, or the form may have /a/, i.e. *ávi-
levelled from *H2ów-i-s, dat. *H2aw-y-ey.
I am still baffled by this statement of yours:
> [...] still probably the best version of
> Brugmann's Law claims that only apophonic -o- > long /a:/ in Skt.
Any -o-
> from other sources, it is claimed, > short /a/
I really do not understand what such a formulation means for *pót-i-
> pát-i- 'lord'. Does it mean that the very fact that we know of no
alternants with different vowels makes this a case for which BL
correctly predicts short /a/? Are you saying by that that it is not
the old e-grade of a presumed *H3éw-i-s 'sheep' that has immunized
the vowel against lengthening, but the fact that it is not one of
the kinds of /o/ that we do know about? Is it, in effect, the
*obscurity* of the o-timbre of *pót-i-s that is at play in that
word? Do "obscure /o/" and original *H3e act the same in Indo-
Iranian? Is this serious talk at all? I am trying not to
misrepresent your argumentation, did I happen to do that anyway?
Jens