Re: [tied] Re: Earth and Thorn

>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: elmeras2000<mailto:jer@...>
> To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com<mailto:cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Monday, July 11, 2005 11:13 AM
> Subject: [tied] Re: Earth and Thorn

> We have seen that, according to Sturtevant, these signs are _not_
> differentiatable.
>
> Jens writes that the vowel of this word should be reconstructed as /e:/.
> He apparently bases that on occasional spellings like <te-e-kán>; again,
> dead wrong, according to Sturtevant, who writes on p. 37:
>
> "IN Akkadian, vowels are frequently written double (U-2-UL 'not',
> BE-E-EL 'lord'). A similar usage is characteristic of Hurrian writing,
> including the Mitanni letter. In Akkadian writing an extra vowel sign
> may indicate a long vowel, but in Akkadian texts at Boghazköy the double
> writing of short vowel is unusually frequent. There is therefore no
> reason to infer vowel length from the insertion of an extra vowel sign
> in Hittie words. Hittite e-es-zi is the constant spelling of the word
> for 'is', which must be identified with Skt. asti, (Greek) ésti, Lat.
> est."

If you read anything written after 1952, you would have know that Hitt.
e:s^zi is expected because the vowel is regularly lengthened under the
stress.

> We should also ask ourselves if we have ever seen a reconstructed PIE
> form like *dhe:g^hóm, which is what Jens seems to be proposing for the
> prototype for his Hittite te:kán. I have not. Perhaps some of you
> readers have. If so, I would like to know about it.

I have never seen *dhe:g^hóm. But that's not what Jens wrote. Jens wrote
*dhég^ho:m - now *that* I saw many times in the literature. In Hittite *dh

> t, *g^h > k, *e > e: under stress, unaccented *o: shortens regulary and

yields /a/ and *-m# > -n. Nothing strange about it.


Mate