--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski
<piotr.gasiorowski@...> wrote:
> How about the surface-true interpretation /sectos/? (I'll
transcribe the
> affricates [c] and [3] with single letters to emphasise their
unitary
> status.) I think the idea of a phonemic */c/ could be defended for
PIE,
> even if it was a marginal member of the inventory, and if its
> distribution was defective. It's arguable that what we find
finally in
> *po:d-s and *h1dont-s was a single affricate segment rather than a
> cluster, and */c/ is an attractive analysis of the "thorn" in
the "core"
> IE groups. [...]
I don't see how one can know anything about this. The only
compelling reason to posit /c/ would be the observation of an
opposition /c/ : /ts/ which is not in the system as far as we know.
A unit interpretation could also be attractive on the basis of an
idea of duration. But I do not think we have any such knowledge.
My phonemicization /setstos/ is meant as a protest against the
superscript s generally seen in /setStos/ (where S is superscript s,
just this time). I dislike this because it would mean that potential
sequences of original *-t-s-t- which also surface as "-tSt-" would
occasion a rule "-tst- > -tt-", i.e. one of *loss* of /s/ between
two dentals because the output is one in which the -s- is not
phonemic; that strikes me as odd if the truth is that an -s- is
automatically *present* here. But it's no big deal.
Jens