On Wed, 05 Jan 2005 18:30:44 +0000, Sergejus Tarasovas
<
s.tarasovas@...> wrote:
>--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:
>
>> What exactly is the phonotactical constraint?
>
>/Rj/ (let alone heterosyllabic /R.j/) is impossible (R={r,l,m,n})
>(except for recent borrowings like <kolje:~> 'collier').
That /Rj/ is impossible doesn't worry me (I can analyze
<giriu> [g'ir'u] as /girju/ and, say, <kac^iukas>
[kac^'ukas] as /katjukas/ if I want), but the fact is indeed
that the syllabization is always <gi-riu> etc. I have no
idea how CS z^IrjóN was syllabified (z^I-rjóN or z^Ir-jóN?).
As to your question how a hypothetical PIE/PBS *gWr.H-jó:
(syllabified thusly) would have come out in Modern
Lithuanian, I cannot tell. It depends on the exact nature
of the acute diphtongs: did *r.H give /i:r/ with acute
_length_ on the vowel (I don't think so, because that would
have made the _syllable_ circumflex, as e.g. acc.sg. fem.
*-ah2m with acute vowel, but circumflex syllable) or /ir/
with short vowel and acute (rising) intonation over the
course of the diphthong? If there was actual vowel length,
then when were the long diphthongs shortened: before or
after Saussure's law, and before or after the change in
syllabification? If there was no length, merely tone, then
what happened to it when the syllable boundary shifted? Or
was the PBS syllabification already *gi-rjó:? Depending on
the answers to those questions, we can have *gìriu, giriù,
*gýriu.
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...