Re: [tied] Erosion of Latin -us into Romance (was: Nominative Loss.

From: enlil@...
Message: 32083
Date: 2004-04-20

Richard:
> So, Glen, I don't understand your point.

Just that a loss of *-r in daughter languages at the end
of *pxte:r may not be a simple sound change but rather based
on the morphological or even sandhi context which in some way
favoured this loss despite its expected preservation based on
our knowledge of sound changes alone. It was in response
to Jens' question of "where else do you find such a loss?"
to support his **pxte: idea.

Well, that's an unfair question. It's what we see afterall
whether we reconstruct *pxte:r, or *pxte: < *pxte:r -- We
still ultimately need *pxte:r and so such a loss MUST
have taken place. So, why am I being questioned for that
bit of common sense.


= gLeN