[tied] Re: IE thematic presents and the origin of their thematic vo

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...>
wrote:

> Rob wrote:
>
> > I agree. It seems to me, however, that the latter is older than
> > the former, for it affects the accent. The question is, why
> > doesn't there seem to be an equally old aorist derivation?
>
> If the acrostatic accentuation of the sigmatic aorist is due to the
> underlyingly long root vowel, such forms may be as old as anything
> in PIE. The accent was originally mobile, but since the root vowel
> was shortened rather than deleted in forms with desinential accent,
> it remained full and attracted the accent later on.

I still see no reason to posit any underlyingly long root vowels. If
there were, we would expect to see an é:/o alternation, given the
apparent features of IE pitch accent and qualitative Ablaut.

> > In phonological terms, there is nothing in IE that seems to
> > suggest /sj/ becoming /sk/, so I doubt that Jens is right.
>
> I agree the phonological aspect of the whole thing is difficult,
> but in morphological and functional terms the equation *-sk^e- = *-
> s- + *-je- is just too attractive to be brushed aside.

Personally, I don't see what's so attractive about it.

> > Yet there is a well-known phonological rule whereby (C)VCs(C)
> > sequences become (C)V:Cs(C) ones.
>
> Is there? You put the bracketed (C) here just to account for the
> sigmatic aorist; otherwise such a rule (whose formulation should be
> further refined in order to include at least the lengthening before
> final *h2 as well) is only employed for explaining the lengthened
> vowels of PIE nominatives.

Actually, including '*h2' would be even better, for the rule could be
further *generalized* such that all fricatives in word-final (if not
overall coda) position cause lengthening of the preceding vowel.

> > How common were the "plain" Narten stems in IE?
>
> Not terribly common, which is quite understandable if we are
> dealing with an archaic type of alternation that tended to be
> eliminated in various ways already in the protolanguage. There are
> some further complications that look even more puzzling, such as
> apparently reduplicated stems with a Narten vowel in the
> reduplication syllable. The clearest case is *te:tk^- (a.k.a.
> *tek^T- in "thorny" terms).

Don't productive processes sometimes still have limited range?

- Rob