Jens:
> Thus, from a root with expected - and established - full grade
> *H2wegs-, we experience no surprise when the causative is found
> to be *(H2)wogs-éye-ti, and I see no reason to enter a rule of
> metathesis concerning the placing of the o-element.
Yes, of course. Phew! I thought that would do my theory in...
Well folks. I got a hybrid proposal just itching to be
explained. Here goes.
I have an issue with the consonantal *O/*R but luckily since
it's not your favourite idea, Jens, you'll be happy to eject
it once I'm through ;) or maybe you'll appreciate the
entertainment value of this warped yet succulent new view of
the O-fix. I agree with Piotr. This is a phonetic thing, not a
morphological thing at all. However obviously something is
making these funny o's and you've at least convinced me
that this should be pursued.
I think it should go as follows, in this chronological order
during the beginning of the early Late IE period, long
before the vowel shift of *a > *o (hence we should call it
the A-fix really):
1. Syncope
2. Case misanalysis
3. Saussure
4. a-Epenthesis (formerly my a-Prothesis)
Saussure must be placed before Epenthesis to explain
why *H disappears in those magical instances of *o
when it doesn't for *e. The solution is not the *o,
but rather that the *o is indicative of epenthesis
to correct a previous cluster problem and it is this
CLUSTERING PROBLEM that causes the loss of the
laryngeal to help tongue-tied IE speakers cope until
epenthesis kicks in. And Syncope is of course the
sweeping loss of unstressed *a [&] of Mid IE and the
reduction of unstressed *e [I] to early Late IE *&.
Now, so far, I'm totally swayed by the hunch that the
epenthesis is a rule motivated solely by phonotactics.
An earlier Syncope provides this motivation by breaking
up ugly clusters. It turns out, so it seems on my napkin
that I feverishly inked with schizophrenic zeal, that
there is a pattern concerning syllable shape that needs
to be considered when applying the epenthetic rule and
that only nouns with misanalysed case endings apply.
(Yes, by god, it's the "misanalysed case endings happy
hour" at the gLeN ranch again. It's that idea that
nobody likes but which explains some thematic nouns
oh so well...)
With *kwon-, for example, the MIE word should be
*kawana. Unstressed *a is obliterated by Syncope
leaving *kwan. This does not add epenthetic *a.
Why?
With *osdo- "perch", akin to *sed- "sit", the
correlating MIE root is *sat:-asa, an *-asa
derivative (identical with the genitive). After
Syncope, we expect *sdas, yet unlike eLIE *kwan, it
**does** add *a thereafter. Hence *asdas > *osdos.
Why?
That's because *kwan is not misanalysed as a root
with a case ending, while *sdas is misanalysed as
*sda-s. We thus end up with an icky root of the
form *CCV- and early Late IE didn't like that
because it violated it's finicky rules of syllable
shape and valid root forms. Hence the *a-prothesis
that I've long espoused.
However, Jens has been talking about INFIXING and
that just gets my feathers aruffled because
infixing is not common (only one, *-n-) and
because with what he has offered, there is no
convincing evidence that this is a morpheme, let
alone a consonant. Yet, I'm not in a position to
deny what is presented such as *moigos versus
*hWmeigos.
Then I comes to thinkin', this is still akin to
my a-Prothesis rule. But it should be called
a-Epenthesis, allowing for prefixing at times,
infixing of a prop vowel to tidy up the syllabics
of a syncopated root at other times. So what's
the rule now??
Here's the rule in two parts:
1. If a root or its syllables are of
an odd shape phonotactically, prefix
it with an *a and pray it fixes it.
2. If that doesn't work and we
still have wonky syllabics, shift
the vowel to the next slot and pray
some more.
3. Repeat 2 if necessary and garnish
to taste ;)
So with *osdo- (*sed-), *oxuyom "egg" (*xowi-),
*ohku- "fast" (*ekwo-) and *okto:u (kWetwor-),
prefixing worked well enough and nothing more was
needed. In the following table, it must be understood
that *i and *u were consonants according to eLIE
phonotactics and "//" represents a syllable boundary:
sat:asa xawaiana akwasa hWamaik:asa hWameik:e
---------------------------------------------------------
syn. sdas xwyan ?kwas hWmigas hWmeig-
mis. sda- xuya- ?kwa- hWmiga-
saus. miga-
epen. as//da- ax//wia- ah//kwa- mai//ga- hWmeig-
---------------------------------------------------------
PIE osdo- oxuyo- ohk(w)-u- moigo- hWmeig-
So *moigo- shows what happens when wonky syllabics
come into play and rule 2 of a-Epenthesis needs to
be employed.
The End. If I missed something, let me know.
= gLeN