From: Miguel Carrasquer
Message: 27892
Date: 2003-12-02
>--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:I asked because this mechanism, which works fine for most consonant stems,
>
>> Do you think that this mobile accent in the u-stems was secondary?
>
>I would assume it had come about just like the accentual mobility
>seen in other paradigms, including the verb. Wherever a stem was
>followed by a flexive with an underlying vowel in it the accent
>moved one syllable towards the end of the word.
>In the case of *-tu-Is there an *h2áugri-? The substantives I can find for this root seem to
>this works fine, for when added to a root-final consonant this gave
>a strem ending in at least three consonants and so caused insertion
>of a vowel -e- before the stem-final /w/. Before the working of the
>ablaut, the acc. would be *pér-tew-m, while the genitive would be
>*per-téw-os with accent advancement. After the ablaut this comes out
>as *pér-tu-m, *pr-téw-s.
>In the u-stem adjective, however, I really do not know what is going
>on. I believe I have some intuitive understanding of ntr. *pélH1-
>u 'viel' and of the type *H2ug-ró-s 'strong', but I find it very
>difficult to accomodate *plH1-ú-s, gen. *plH1-éw-s in a sensible
>system. One might like to regard *plH1-ú- as an end-stressed (i.e.
>adjectival) variant of a substantival *pélH1-u-, but then of what is
>*H2ug-ró- the end-stssed variant? And if it is not a variant, why
>this difference?
>
>Do we have to posit
>
>*bhéng^h-u- => *bhng^h-ú-
>*H2éwg-ri-s => *H2ug-ró- ?
>
>And do the substantival forms proceed from older
>
>*bhéng^h-ro- > *bhéng^h-o- > *bhéng^h-u-
>*H2éwg-ro- > *H2éwg-ri- ??
>The contrastive accent will appear to have worked in a setting:So you think -u- is a slightly reduced thematic vowel, and -i- a more
>
>*bhéng^h-u- => *bheng^h-ú- > *bhng^h-ú-
>*H2éwg-ro- => *H2ewg-ró-,
>i.e. before the substantival form reduced *-ro- to *-ri.
>
>
>This could yield a principled account for the difference between -u-
>and -ri- of the substantival forms: *-ro- loses its /r/ after roots
>that have a sonant of their own; but the thematic vowel itself
>undergoes a heavier reduction after a longer sequence, hence -ri-,
>but -u;
>after a light root (without sonant) the reduction of *-ro-Of course. So unstable that pre-PIE **i and **u were largely lost as
>was poserior to the creation of the adjectival counterpart in which
>then the suffix *-ró- survives unreduced. This takes stock of the
>facts we have, including the substantive type seen in OCS
>dIbrI 'depth', Gk. ákris 'peak' which plays a key role in writings
>on these matters.
>
>It would mean that the suffix split into *-ro- and *-u- must have
>been completed before the production of zero-grade. Therefore it was
>not, after all, a heavy clustering like "*bhng^h-ro-", but already
>its full-grade prestage *bhéng^h-ro- (or *-ru-?) that lost its -r-
>by reduction of a cluster.
>
>It looks strange perhaps that the -u- of the nom.-acc. acts like a
>vowel when it receives the accent but as a consonant when the suffix
>is expanded to /-ew-/ after a cluster in the weak cases where it
>gets the accent as a consequence of accentual mobility. This may
>hold the key: The status of the high vowels would seem to have been
>unstable.
>It would appear that the reduced form of the thematic vowel -u-I can't agree with any of the thematic vowel reductions, so it's hard for
>acted just like the later sonants: It stays a vowel before a
>consonantal ending (-us, -um, -ubhis, -usu), but becomes a sonant -w-
> when followed by a vowel. That produced pre-ablaut gen. *bhéng^h-ew-
>os which with the second-syllable accent of adjcetives became
>*bheng^h-éw-os and ended up IE *bhng^h-éw-s.
>
>The lesson to be learned apears to be that adjectives made by
>contrastive accent on the basis of substantives were not mobile, but
>columnal, in their accentuation.