Re: [tied] Re: Schwa (Was PIE Reconstruction)

From: Miguel Carrasquer
Message: 39154
Date: 2005-07-09

On Sat, 09 Jul 2005 13:46:58 -0500, Patrick Ryan
<proto-language@...> wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Miguel Carrasquer<mailto:mcv@...>
> On Sat, 09 Jul 2005 12:22:42 -0500, Patrick Ryan
> > Some very competent linguists of the past (Benveniste, for one) looked at the
> >disconnect between Hittite and _ALL_ the other IE-derived languages
>
> Nonsense. Only Greek has the metathesis (*d(h)g^ho:m >
> khtho:n), since Skt. ks.- is inconclusive.
>
> ***
> Patrick:
>
> What is nonsense? Are you saying that Benveniste DID NOT look at the problem.
>Well, unless Pokorny is a liar, he did, and judged that *g^hdhem- was original.

Yeah, he says that the Hittite and Tocharian forms are not
related, which is unacceptable.

The reconstruction *g^hðo:m is a past station, nobody
belives in that anymore.


> The order dental-velar is proven by Hittite <tekan> and
> Tocharian A <tkam.>. That's conclusive.
>
> ***
> Patrick:
>
> So, two examples (you like) trumps two examples (I like).

Of course. Metathesis *dhgh- > *ghdh- is trivial,
velar-to-dental clusters being easier to pronounce than
dental-to-velar ones ["harmonic clusters"] (see Gamqrelidze
and Ivanov or Gamqrelidze and Machavariani for parallel
phenomena in Kartvelian). The Hittite form, on the other
hand, shows the consonants in their original order with an
intervening vowel. There is no reason whatsoever for
Hittite to have metathesized *g^hedh- to *dheg^h-, so
*dheg^h- is the original order. As confirmed by Tocharian
<tk->, and by *g^h- (with loss of the initial consonant, as
expected) in Sanskrit (jmas, gmas), Avestan, Balto-Slavic,
Greek (khamai), Latin, Germanic, Tocharian...

> And secondly, you ignore the implications of the other two words
>which are reconstructed with the same unusual initial cluster.
>
> Of course, Greek ikhthûs must be ignored. Or do you say that
>'fish' should be *dhg^hu:-?

Of course. And *(dh)g^hyes "yesterday". And *tek- "to give
birth" (Grk. teknon, but tikto: < *ti-tk-o:). Metathesis is
completely regular in Greek inharmonic clusters of this
kind.


=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...