On Thu, 13 Nov 2003 11:03:30 +0100, Piotr Gasiorowski
<
piotr.gasiorowski@...> wrote:
>What do you make of the curious fact that *septm. is _consistently_ stressed
>on the syllabic nasal in IE? (Indo-Iranian, Greek, Albanian and Germanic all
>confirm this odd pattern.)
Whatever the reason for that, I doubt it has anything to do with the source
of the borrowing. I'm not sure where the stress fell in PS *sab`atu(m),
but PIE *septm. is consistent with an original (pre-zero-grade) stress
pattern *<sébVtVm> -> *<séptm.>. Only after zero grade was the stress
shifted to the final syllable. A similar case, but of stress retraction,
must be *<wl.kWós> -> *<wl.'kWos>.
Obvious sources for analogy are absent (ennéa, déka / náva, dás'a do not
have the stress on the syllabic nasal).
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...