Re: Eggs from birds and swift horses (was: the palatal sham)

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Piotr Gasiorowski"
<piotr.gasiorowski@...> wrote:

>
> > I find the agreement very pleasant. And if you like metathesis so
> much you can have it here, but then it's a different kind from the
> one you are defending for /polló-/.

> Not _very_ different. *O > *o when it turns syllabic (i.e.
> interconsonantally) but it's possible that *O > w before a vowel.

How do you define very? A difference

> Your
> examples suggest that the quality of the laryngeal was relevant,

though it's

> hard to say why.

But not *very* hard? /H3/ was rounded, so if assimilation rounds
the whole group become a long voiced rounded fricative, it will not
be unlikely to produce a segmental /w/ if a vowel follows.

> > I actually see very little
> change, especially as I do not know exactly what the -O- sounded
> like. I am also surprised to see that you throw around full

phonemes

> and apparently exclude phonetic changes of subphonemic status.
>
> The _result_ looks like metathesis. The _mechanism_ may have

consisted in

> subtle subphonemic effects, but there came a time when those low-

lewel

> phonetic changes became phonemicised.

The result looks like it ended in a segment that was not in the
input. That is not well-described as metathesis, though there may be
a thousand ways it can have involved one on its way.

Jens