Rob wrote:
>>Given the meaning of these nouns, the underlying length of the
>>vowel was most likely iconic and had a fuction akin to that of
>>reduplication.
>
>
> Is such "iconic lengthening" realistic, from a phonological standpoint?
What _phonological_ difficulty could there be here? But one could ask,
with reason, if this kind of phonological iconicity is ever found in the
real world. Well, there are plenty of lengthened-grade iterative verbs
in Balto-Slavic, so I could give numerous examples from my own language,
such as <zapraszac'> 'invite continually' vs. <zaprosic'> 'invite
(once)' and <prosic'> 'ask, invite' (< PIE *prok^-éje-; Slavic *a
reflects the lengthened counterpart of *o). Reduplication is very often
transparently iconic (cf. Tok Pisin tok 'talk' vs. toktok [iterative or
intensive]).
Piotr