Re: [tied] *kW- "?"

First, a technical note. I follow the old and GOOD tradition to spell H,
never h, for "laryngeals" - but we do not know their place of articulation
(my opinion is they were just velar spirants x^, x and xW). So, "gH" means
for me "g" plus a laryngeal. And, I use "gh" the same way as in Sanskrit =
for a voiced aspirated sound. Such a spelling is correct from the view of
tradition and from the view of IPA (h = aspiration). And I cannot understand
who and why changed this good old custom with the new one, inverse - perhaps
only for making troubles.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, September 21, 2005 4:09 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] *kW- "?"


> Actually, as I said in our private exchange just before you joined
> Cybalist, I imagine that the (pre-)PIE articulation of the *k series was
> as pharyngealised dorsal stops rather than true uvulars. Whatever the
> phonetic details, they probably patterned with *h2 as members of the
> same natural class.

I still see no reason for such an assumption. And, which is more, *k, *g and
*gh seem to have been as marginal phonemes as *b in PIE. It is possible that
they were present only in loanwords.

> (Incidentally, I don't know what you mean by saying
> that [a] has the same place of articulation as [k]. Low vowels hardly
> have _any_ place of articulation -- that's what being "low" or "open" is
> all about.)

Just take into consideration front [a] (like in German or French), central
[a] (like in Polish) and back [a] (different character in IPA, like in
Dutch) which are all low but which have different places of articulation. If
you state that low vowels have no place of articulation, tell my what the
difference between them is in.

Different places of articulation of velars are well known for many
languages, like English or Polish. And it is known pretty well that [ke] has
more front [k] than [ka] in many languages.

In my opinion, PIE three rows of velars correspond well with original
vocalization. I mean that *k^ < former *ke, *k < *ka and perhaps *kW < *ko.
Things changed when reduction of unstressed vowels took place, and when
analogy and other morphological processes caused the e ~ o ablaut.

If I am right, *k, *g, *gh were not pharyngeal (and of course not uvular),
and the a-colour is just the trace of the previous, pre-IE state.

> The a-colouring effect of *k, *g and *gH was not as strong as in the
> case of *h2, and the resulting vowel was not always phonemicised as
> different from fundamental *e.

Or, sometimes the former *ka would enter into the ablaut as *ke ~ *ko.

> However, the high incidence of *a in
> roots with "plain velars" is quite striking, and many of such cases are
> excellently attested items rather than figments of risky root
> comparison: *kap- 'take', *kan- 'sing', *bHag- 'divide', *magH- 'be
> able', etc. The fact that we have what looks like surviving traces of
> normal qualitative and quantitative apophony in several such roots
> (*kap-/*ke:p-/*ko:p-, *kan-/*kon-, etc.) suggests that the root vowel
> should indeed be derived from *e, coloured by the phonetic environment.
> I also believe that PIE had an *a phoneme of other origin, but that's a
> topic for a whole new thread (if necessary; the evidence has already
> been reviewed here).

I see these examples not-so-striking because I have doubts concerning the
reconstructions you give.

1) *ke:p-/*ko:p- may suggest *kEp (E = schwa), not *kap.

I bet that the stem is *kHVpH- and it is related to the following:
a) Slavic xapati "take, catch, bite" < *kHVHp- < *kHVpH- (V = a or o), Arm.
xaphanem "I disturb" (semantics in Armenian - cf. with Slavic gabati below,
Germ. p and Arm. ph < *pH, i.e. *p + laryngeal).
b) Germ. *xabe:- 'have' < *kVp- or *kVbh- (in fact, Lat. habe:re vs. Gmc.
*xabe:- is striking!); also Germ. happig "greedy, grasping", be-hoof
"behalf"; Alb. kam 'I have' (< *kap-m-) < *koHp- < *kHVpH-
c) Germ. *ko:pja- 'keep' < *kHVpH- (see pH > ph in Armenian with no
consonantal shift)
d) Germ. *geb- 'give' < *gHebH- < *kHVpH-; Lat. habe:re 'have', Slavic
gabati (cf. Polish nagabywac "to ply, to molest") < *gHabHe:- < *kHVpHe:-

The problem is that a voiceless stop + a laryngeal was not a very common
phenomenon in IE, and such a group tended to be replaced by a simple
voiceless (Lat. capio, Eng. have) or by an aspirated voiced stop (Lat.
habe:re, Slavic gabati). All three forms may have existed side-by-side in
particular IE dialects. Next, if unchanged, *pH, *kH > ph, kh in
Indo-Iranian, p, k in Germanic, and ph, x in Armenian; moreover kH > x in
Slavic (of course pH, kH merged with bh, gh in Greek). Not a word here on
*tH because it is not in this root.

Resuming, I am convinced that semantic similarity of different IE roots of
the type *kVp-, *gVb- (false reconstr. for Germanic "keep") and *gHVbH- is
not just a coincidence. And I am especially convinced that the
reconstruction *kap is totally erroraneous. And semantic relationship
between "have", "catch" and "keep" (and even "give" = "make me possess") is
obvious, see Lat. tene:re "keep" and Spanish tener "have", or Slavic ime^ti
"have", imati "keep" (for "keep" see imadlo "vice, vice, chuck") and je,ti
"catch".

Btw. Latin capio, capere, ce:pi: as if < *káp- is also no evidence, cf.
facio, facere, fe:ci: with the reduced grade of the root in Present as well
(but nobody denies facio < *dhH-k-)


2) *kan- is also false, the same about semantic, it was not "sing" but "emit
a rhythmic sound". Of course I see *kEn < *kHn here as well (or even *kHnH),
cf.
a) Latin cico:nia "stork" < *k°koHn- (do storks sing?),
b) *hana- "cock" and OHG huon 'hen' (< *xo:niz-) (do hens sing?),
c) Latin canis may also be transformed under the influence of canere
(barking IS a rhythmic sound, isn't it); but *cuonis would be expected
instead,
d) Sanskrit kinkini: 'a kind of bell', kinkira 'Indian cockoo' and also
'foal', 'bee' and 'deity of lov(ing)' (everything related to rhythm, in such
or another way), kinkira:ta 'parrot'
e) possibly also Sanskrit khan 'dig', praes. khánati < *kH2án(H)eti, pp.
kha:tá < *kHnH-tó-, cf. also khanitra 'spade', 'a tool for doing rhythmic
moves' < *kHanH-tro-

3) *bhag-: here I should agree with -a- indeed, but... could you explain -i-
in Skr. bhiks.ate 'erbittet' (see Pokorny, "he obtains by plaguing with
entreaties"). It really looks like if a schwa were here, doesn't it?

4) And finally *magh- is also not-so-clear as it could look. It is a very
complex problem as there are some IE words with the meaning 'big, powerful'
(if not convinced about relation between 'able' and 'powerful', just compare
Slavic *mogti 'be able' and *mogQtjI 'powerful'). Just take some more roots
into consideration:
a) *me:-/*mo:-/*mE-/*mEi- like in Slavic -me^rU in proper names, Goth. mais,
maiza 'more', Osk. mais 'more' etc. (see Pokorny, me:-(4))
b) *meg^h- like in Sanskr. maha-
c) *meg^- like in Greek mega- (strange -a- here, isn't it?, < *meg^H- ? ),
arm. mec 'big', Lat. magnus (why -a- in the root?)

How do you explain g^ : g^h : NULL here? And why shouldn't we make a link
between *magh- and *meg^-/*meg^h-/*me:-? We could explain the strange
variation assuming another instance of "stop + laryngeal" here (cf. esp.
Greek mega-). If this laryngeal was H2, then g^H2 > gH2 (like in *magh-)
would be a simple assimilation. And finally, the a-colour should be
explained with the influence of H2 (see Latin magnus!).

And there is yet another fact which would make this explanation probable:
Lith. mok'e.ti (acute over long "overdotted" e.) 'can, understand', possibly
< *mo:kH- instead of the postulated *mVgH-.


But even if you reject my explanation, your view about pharyngealized
character of the *K series would be correct only if -a- was present only by
*K. Is it so really? Let's take the Pokorny's dictionary.

And here's what we have here:
*g^ab- 'to show, to watch', *g^ar- 'to call, to cry',
*g^haiso- 'stick, dart', *g^halg(h)- 'twig', *g^hal-ar- 'flaw, defect',
*g^han- 'to yawn', *g^han-s- 'goose', *g^hasto- ~ *g^hazdho- 'twig', g^hauE-
'to call', g^ha:gWh- 'young of an animal or bird'
*gWadh- 'to sink, to submerge',
*k^ad- 'to fall', *k^ad-(2) 'to shine, to flaunt', *k^as- 'gray', *k^at- 'to
fight, to battle', *k^am- ~ *k^em- 'stick, pole, horn'
*(s)kWalo- 'a k. of big fish', *kWas-io- 'basket-work'


As you can see, even if you can find some doubtless examples of *ka, *ga or
*gha, there are also other examples, of *k^a, *g^a or *g^ha and of *kWa,
*gWa (*gWha ?). So, there is no connection between neutral velars and the
a-colorizing effect in PIE.

Grzegorz J.





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