Re: [tied] Re: Ie. *laywos/leh2iwos (was: ka and k^a)

On Mon, 26 Sep 2005 11:53:28 +0000, tgpedersen
<tgpedersen@...> wrote:

>> According to Jens' rules concerning "long diphthongs", a
>> form *leh2iwós would not be possible. The expected
>> structure would be either stressed and metathesized
>> *léih2wos or unstressed *lh2iwós, neither of which could
>> have given Slavic lêvU (ap c).
>>
>> The full grade of the root is unremarkable if the word
>> contains etymological */a/, since the zero grade of */a/ is
>> */a/, as in *nas- obl. *nas-; *sal- obl. *sal-, etc. Since
>> these are acrostatic formations, we would expect Ablaut
>> *oN/*eN (*noNs-, obl. *neNs-), and apparently the reflexes
>> of *oN and *eN merged, Old-Polish-style, as **/aN/ (> */a/).
>>
>
>Would your new rule be able to rescue Sanskrit 'ambu-' "water" for
>the family of *Hap- "water" (< PIE *xamb- ?). Cf Gr. omphax "ripe
>grape"

No, the a- is explained well enough by *h2-[*], and my rule
does not concern itself with labial stops, nor does it offer
carte blanche to mix up the reflexes of *b, *bh and *p.

[*] That is not to say that an /a/ of nasal origin could not
occur in the proximity of *h2 (or *k, *g, *gh), it just
makes it more difficult to prove the need of /a/ (as opposed
to *h2e). One case where *-ah2- (and not *-eh2-) might come
in handy is in the case of verbs which show *-em/*-ah2
alternation (*gWah2-/*gWem- "to come", and another one,
which I forget now). We might have had an originla
distribution *gWemh2-C- > *gWaNh2 > *gWah2- vs. *gWemh2-V- >
*gWem-V-, or something like that.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...