Miguel:
>Hebrew has lost final (short) vowels, so penultimate accent becomes final.
Just like in IE... sorry, just had to rub that in.
>To return to the word for "7", the Semitic reflexes would seem to suggest
>accentuation on the second syllable *sab`�tu, in view of the reduction of
>the first -a- to /i/ in Hebrew s^ib`a: (besides s^ab`a:), Aramaic s^ib`a:,
>and to /�/ in Amharic s�batt.
Well, I don't know about *sab`�tu. I'm counting on *s�b`atu. The
question is: What can we be sure of about the relevant stage of
Pre-IE when this loan took place (or rather what can _I_ be sure of
because most of us on this List aren't getting involved enough in Pre-IE
to know what to be sure of)? I do know that Mid IE at the time
must have had a strong stress accent, for one, to explain the strong
evidence of heavy syncope by Late IE. This is a natural and commonly
found conclusion.
If the accent were on the second syllable, it would have to be a mild
enough accent for IE speakers at the time to have failed noticing not
only the second -a-, but the ayin as well! Based on my analysis, there's
no reason to think that Mid IE didn't have laryngeals while Late IE did.
It's simpler to assume that the laryngeals were there unless a reason
otherwise presents itself -- just Occam's Razor again. Yet where is
that entire second syllable in Semitic represented in IE?
It's not there because the Semitic form was indeed *s�b`atum. In
rapid speech, we could expect something like *[sab'`(@)tHm] The
Pre-IE rules that I propose are strict but simple and explanatory. Yet
there is nothing that can credibly change a Mid IE form **sepx�tem
(the expected reflex of *sab`�tum) or even **sepxtem into
*septm without inventing a whole new host of ad hoc rules for
both accent AND phonology just for this one special case. That
would be too Miguelian a solution for me and I wouldn't be able
to live with myself :) In other words, this thought path is outright
fruitless.
The absence of this second syllable in Mid IE *septem, the only
form that can properly explain later *septm, would indicate strongly
that the accent at the time was on the first syllable in the Semitic
language that IE had borrowed from. And so, thus was the stress
accent in Mid IE, as well as Late IE until syllabic nasals had developped
and the accent had shifted to a fully mobile one.
This is the most economical solution available.
= gLeN
_________________________________________________________________
The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE*
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/bcomm&pgmarket=en-ca&RU=http%3a%2f%2fjoin.msn.com%2f%3fpage%3dmisc%2fspecialoffers%26pgmarket%3den-ca