From: Patrick Ryan
Message: 39431
Date: 2005-07-25
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Brophey" <TBrophey@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, July 25, 2005 4:46 AM
Subject: [tied] Re: Short and long vowels
--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ryan" <proto-language@...>
wrote:
> Finally, we have 'father', the 'feeder'. Rather than connecting it
with
> *pa:-, I would connect it with the derived root *p6-t- (*pH2-té-),
which,
> when combined, gives us *pH2-t-á:tr.-. For euphony, this was
simplified to
> *pH2{t}-tér."
I am surprised by this reconstruction: I had expected you to derive the
*-H2- as a reduced form of *-aH- or *-Ha-. Is it that for lack of
Nostratic evidence you can't determine which? Or might there perhaps
have been an original naked laryngeal between consonants?
***
Patrick:
So am I. I advertently gave some wrong information.
I will go through the entire development, hoping I get it right this time:
We start with the root *pa, which means 'flat(ten)'; it was applied to
grazing animals, taking on the meaning 'feed'.
To that, the stative suffix *?a was added, producing *pá?, 'fed'; later PIE
*pa:- ot *paH.
Now, the collective suffix -*to was added: *p?-té (*pHté), 'food'.
On top of that, the occupational suffix was added (-ter), *pHto-tér;
with removal of stress-unaccented vowels: *pHt-tér,
and simplification of genminated consonant: *pH-tér.
One could rewrite this with *H2, in which I do not believe.
The Nostratic evidence is slim to non-existent; neither Sumerian nor
Egyptian have reflexes of agentives in -*tore, which became a nuclear family
member suffix; both stop at the earlier stage -*to. Members of the nuclear
family do not have even this suffix.
In my opinion, no laryngeal can have appeared without - at least,
initially - a vowel.