From: Patrick Ryan
Message: 41804
Date: 2005-11-06
----- Original Message -----
From: "david_russell_watson" <liberty@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, November 06, 2005 12:02 AM
Subject: [tied] Re: PIE voiceless aspirates
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ryan" <proto-language@...>
> wrote:
> >--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "david_russell_watson" <liberty@...>
> wrote:
> > >
> > > Keeping in mind that 'H' represents the aspiration of the stop
> > > written just before it, while 'h' represents a laryngeal:
> > >
> > > *etho would divide into syllables as [et.ho], 1st syllable long, but
> > > *etHo would divide into syllables as [e.tHo], 1st syllable short.
> >
> > And you still claim that Old Indian aspirates were the product of
> > voiceless stop + *H???
>
> Yes, of course. Did you not read my excerpts of Lehmann and
> Burrow? The case they make is really an air-tight one, which
> is why it is now the most widely accepted explanation.
>
> Of course you're trying to say that since a short vowel before
> a voiceless aspirate in Sanskrit isn't long by position, that
> aspirate cannot have come from a sequence of two consonants
> in P.I.E. However that isn't the case, as I once asked Piotr,
> at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/13409 , this
> very question.
>
> I've pasted my question below, followed by Piotr's replies.
>
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: wtsdv
> > To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
> > Sent: Saturday, April 20, 2002 7:16 AM
> > Subject: [tied] Voiceless Aspirates
> >
> > The voiceless aspirates in Indo-Aryan derive from a sequence of
> > stop plus laryngeal that later became a unit phoneme. Before
> > doing so, the first vowel in such words as the following should
> > have been long by position, should it not?
> >
> > prthus 'broad, wide' < *prt-Xus
> > vyathate 'trembles' < *vyat-Xa-tay
> > rikhati 'scratches' < *rik-Xa-ti
> >
> > So then after the change of the cluster to a unit phoneme, should
> > there not have been compensatory lengthening in the first vowel to
> > preserve the metric structure?
> >
> > David
***
Patrick:
First, let me say that I have great respect for Lehmann and Piotr. I am not
in a position to make a personal judgment on Burrow.
I think I should have been more explicit with the point I was trying to
make.
If <prthus> really represents something like /pRt-xus/ then <th> does not
represent an aspirated voiceless stop. Why would Old Indian have used one
letter to represent what, to their ears, would have had to have been a
sequence of two sounds /t/ + /x/, in this case, in two different syllables?
And, if /x/ were still present in that position, why do we see no sign to
represent /xV/ in other positions?
If Old Indian <th> represented an earlier affricate /ts/, would the syllable
division not have been /pRt-sus/?
***