Re: [tied] Re: Short and long vowels; the explanation of Old Indian

----- Original Message -----

From: Miguel Carrasquer

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Sunday, July 17, 2005 7:12 PM

Subject: Re: [tied] Re: Short and long vowels; the explanation of Old Indian /i/ as zero-grade <a:>

On Sun, 17 Jul 2005 18:29:27 -0500, Patrick Ryan
<proto-language@...> wrote:

>  From: Miguel Carrasquer<mailto:mcv@...>
>  >  ***
>  >  Patrick:
>  >
>  >  Now I am really surprised at you. What happened to sthitá??? Is that not from *aH?
>
>  No.  It's from *sth2tó-.
>
>
>  ***
>  Patrick:
>
>  Forgive me, but you are being obtuse.
>
>  sthitá is from sthá:- which is from *sthaH-.

It's from *steh2-.

 

***

Patrick:

 

PIE is the only language in the world for which 'coloring' laryngeals have been proposed.

 

That does not make them impossible but it certainly makes them highly improbable.

 

On the other hand, one of the commonest phenomena to observe in languages with stress-accent is that long vowels preserve their qualities while shprt vowels are reduced to undifferentiaed sounds like schwa.

 

I will place my bets where the probabilities favor me.

 

***

>  >  ***
>  >
>  >  Not for <a:> from */o/ in an open syllable, nor for <a:>
>  >  derived from PIE long */e:/ (the zero grade of both is <a>).
>  >  
>  >  ***
>  >  Patrick:
>  >
>  >  Is it late at night where you are writing?
>  >
>  >  You are making no sense at all.
>  >
>  >  Above this, on this page, you affirmed that Old Indian <a:> comes from PIE *eH and *oH.
>
>  And you affirmed (correctly!) that "[i]n open syllables, *o
>  was further modified to <a:>".
>
>  Now I don't know what exact chronology you have in mind, but
>  I merely wanted to point out that not all Indo-Iranian
>  /a:/'s have a zero-grade /i/.  Just the ones with a
>  laryngeal origin.
>
>  ***
>  Patrick:
>
>  And what is the source for these other Indo-Iranian <a:>'s?

/o/ (Brugmann), /o:/, /e:/.

>  ***

 

***

Patrick:

 

This kind of laconic oracular utterance serves no useful purpose. Either give specific examples of what you are talking about or I will ignore whatever you write.

 

***

 

 

 

>
>
>  >  Pre-PIE *eH becomes PIE *e: which in turn becomes Old Indian <a:>.
>  >
>  >  For all Old Indian <a:>, the zero-grade is <i>.
>
>  Obviously not.
>
>  ***
>  Patrick:
>
>  Prove it.
>
>  ***
>
>  >  ______________________
>  >
>  >  If you do not believe this, give me one example of PIE *e: which became Old Indian <a:> which has the zero-grade <a>.
>
>  3sg. ta:s.t.i -- 3pl. taks.ati
>
>  ***
>  Patrick:
>
>  You have been learning tricks from someone else on the list; when in doubt, change the subject. I am not prepared in this series of postings to discuss every exception to the rule under the sun.

You cannot just ignore Narten verbs.

***

Patrick:

 

I gave you a perfectly valid explanation for the long a: of ta:STi. Narten is not needed here to explain the a:.

 

I am ignoring nothing, by the way.

 

***
>  What I clearly implied was: show me a -tá participle that had a base form with <a:> that does not show up as <i> in the participle.

tas.t.a-

***

Patrick:

 

Do you know what base form means?

 

The base form is takS- for this verb. Do you see a long <a:> in it?

 

You just cannot answer the question, can you?

 

***

>Your changing of the subject shows it is either difficult or impossible.
>
>  But because your example is so silly, I will make an exception.
>
>  The verbal root is taks.-.
>
>  Notice, no long vowel.
>
>  The 3rd p. sing. should be taks.ti. For ease of pronounciation, the /k/ has been eliminated, and the vowel has been compensatorily lengthened.

No such rule in Vedic.  The verb ta:ks.-/taks.- makes a
Narten present, like a number of others (ks.n.(a)u-, y(a)u-,
n(a)u-, st(a)u-, m(a:)rj-, etc.).  The weak forms (e.g. the
present plural) of these verbs show /a/ (or zero).

 

***

Patrick:

 

We do not need a specific Vedic rule.  Compensatory lengthening with the elimination of a vowel or consonant is well nigh universal.

 

And you are emending reality when you write "The verb ta:ks./taks. . . ." There is no verb ****ta:ks.!

 

I am not interested in discussing Narten presents or non-Narten presents.

 

You are only bringing these side-issues up because you have failed in the main effort.

 

 

***

 

>  This has no bearing whatsoever on anything we have been discussing, and I resent your wasting my time with it.
>
>  ***
>
>
>  ***
>  >  ______________________
>  >
>  >  Also, do you have even one example of PIE *o, which because of it being in an open syllable, became Old Indian <a:> which has the zero-grade <a>? If so, provide it.
>
>  nom/acc. pa:t, pa:dam -- gen. padas (etc.)
>
>
>  ***
>  Patrick:
>
>  Same comments as above.
>
>  We have pa:t as a result of a reduction from *pads. The genitive shows the original vowel. The accusative has been improperly built on the nominative.

No, we have *po:ds, *podm., *pedos, which regularly gives
pa:t, pa:dam, padah. in Vedic.

>  Really! Where is the 'laryngeal' is all this.

There isn't one. That was the point.

***

Patrick:

 

Well, try as hard as you can to get this point: I am making a proposal about roots that have inherited PIE *V: in their base forms, and /i/ in their zero-grades.

 

Pokorny shows "pad-, Fuß"; do you dispute this is the base form for Old Indian, which corresponds to his *pe/e:d- for PIE? He shows *po/o:ts as the nominative singular not your weird *po:ds; *d + *s becomes *ts in PIE the last I heard.

 

If pad- is the real base form, then it does not qualify in this discussion because it does not have inherited PIE *V: but rather *V.

 

There is hardly any other PIE noun that has such an irregular paradigm. If you can find a noun with a regular paradigm that qualifies for our discussion, I will be glad to look seriously at it. 

 

To elucidate the workings behind the forms for this noun would be a full-fledged discussion in and of itself. And we really have enough to occupy us with already.

 

My guess, without researching it exhaustively is the base form is *ped-, 'foot, go'; I base this partly on Egyptian ptpt, 'tread, trample', which is clearly cognate. Egyptian can reflect *ped- but not *pod-.

 

We can see where *o came from in forms like *pédyo-, *podyóm. Formerly stress-accented *é becomes *o.

 

The nominative plural correctly shows *péd-es (pádaH).

 

But the source of the confusion is, I believe, listed in the heading of the entry for *pe/e:d-, namely *pedó-, 'foot-print' (probably also a neuter **pedóm/podém).

 

If *ped- were a unalloyed root noun, its accusative would be *pédM- (Old Indian *pádam).

 

What we actually have as an attested accusative is pá:dam, as if the root were *pód-. A logical place to look for this irregularity is *pedó-. If my postulates are correct, any stress-accented vowel added to *ped- should have produced **podé- with an accusative **podém. If the stress-accent were retracted to the root-syllable, the resulting **pódom (or **pódem) would correspond to the attested accusative pá:dam.

 

So, it looks to me as if the accusative is heterogenetic for *ped-.

 

The bottom line on this root is that it is the result of confusion between *ped- and **podé.

 

 

***

 

 

>  Again, you seem to be blissfully unaware of Iranian.  Old
>  Persian writes Ca-a-i for /a:i/, as opposed to Ca-i for
>  /ai/.  And the Old Persian syllabary had a sign for /yi/.
>  
>  ***
>  Patrick:
>
>  I am never blissful at being unaware of anything.
>
>  Since I dabble in Sumerian, I am full aware of plene spellings.
>
>  So what significance do you believe the Old Persian 'revelations' have for this discussion?

Their significance is that /a:/ was never */ay/, and /a:y/
was never */ayi/.  Your theory about /a:/ being /ay/ < /aç/
was sort of tenable, but only if you do not know a thing
about Iranian.

***

Patrick:

Old Persian is subsequent to Iranian. There is not reason I know that Indo-Iranian /a:y/ could not have become /a:I/ by Old Persian times.

 

 

***