[tied] Re: The role of analogy, alliteration and sandhi in counting

From: Richard Wordingham
Message: 34688
Date: 2004-10-15

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Pe»us Hrubi¹ <hrubisp@...> wrote:
> Well, I doubt. I might accept pre-PIE **pW- > PIE *kW- (via
dissimilation?), as one can hardly explain satem forms - just like
in Slavic languages (Cz c^tyr^i "4", c^tver^ice "a group of 4", Ru
c^etyre "4" and sim.), is there any analogy of a bilabial pW > c^ in
any language? Or, do you think Germanic underwent a different
evolution? Like pre-PIE **pW > Pre-Germanic > *p- as opposed to the
rest of IE? I might have poor imagination...or is the /e/ so strong
a palatalizing agent that it would make pWe- > c^e- ?

Look at the threads, especially at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/14923 ! As I
understand Miguel's idea, *pW was neither stable nor common, and
tended to become *p or *kW. However, the elimination of *pW
proceeded at different rates in the different branches, and with
varying preferences. The branches need not yet have become separate
languages. What we see is similar to the Germanic merger of *w and
*hw. It is complete in most dialects, and from a sample of modern
dialects one might very easily reconstruct just *w. That would
leave isolated forms like English <who> /hu:/ (compared to <what> -
/wOt/ in much of English) to hint that things were once more
complicated.

I don't think a direct change pWe- > c^e- is necessary or
impossible. I would assume the usual route appplied, so pWe > kWe >
ke > c^e. However, given the Latin to Romanian development kwe >
c^e, the Greek development tw > ss, the hypothesised Albanian
development k^w > c'w (ultimately > s) and the widespread
development pj > tS, pWe > c^e does not seem far-fetched to me.

Richard.