Re: [tied] Vedic Rta... one last time

Piotr Gasiorowski wrote:

> In PIE this, the accent in this type of was on the first element
> (despite its phonetic reduction, cf. also *sm.'-logHo-s > Gk. álokHos
> 'wife, concubine', *h1sú-g^Huto- 'well offered' > Ved. súhuta-, etc.).
> I'm not sure why the accent was shifted to the medial syllable in
> Indo-Iranian just in *n.-mr.to- (but we know it was, see Ved. amr.'ta-);
> it normally remained on the initial *n.-, cf. Ved. á-ks.ita-
> 'undecaying' (= Gk. ápHtHitos), etc.

On second thoughts, I think I know how to explain <amr.'ta->. The second
element reflects not the participle *mr.-tó- but the noun *mr.'-to-
'death, murder', derived from it by means of contrastive accent shift
(cf. PGmc. *murþa- 'murder', with no Vernerian voicing). There is no
accent retraction by default since the marked, shifted accent of the
second component resists compositional suppression.

Piotr