Re: [tied] I'm back with a few questions

On 2006-01-24 02:01, andrew jarrette wrote:

> 1. Peter Schrijver agrees with C. Watkins that Latin /molere/,
> /sonere/, /vomere/, /tonere/ reflect original *melH-, *swenH-, *wemH-,
> *tenH-. While I agree that the Sanskrit correspondences do suggest the
> presence of a laryngeal after the resonants, what I don't understand is
> why the sequences *melH- etc. should become /mol/- etc. rather than
> /mel/- etc. (especially in the case of the nasals). What sound law
> explains this? And also, what explains the /a/ of Lithuanian /malti
> /and Gothic and OHG /malan/? Was o-grade possible in the present of
> some thematic verbs, and does this explain /molere/ and perhaps the
> others? What about Germanic class VI and VII verbs - did some of these
> have o-grade, or did they mostly have *a or *h2e or *H or other?

*wemh1-o: > *wemo: > vomo: is regular (*e > o after *w or *l if followed
by a nasal plus a back vowel) and generalised across the paradigm. *swe-

> Lat. so- is regular as well (<soror, somnus, socer> etc.), so in

Latin the reflexes of *swe- are always ambiguous; however, <sona:re> and
<tona:re> (sic!) are Class I verbs, probably denominative (cf. <tonus>,
<sonus>). Only <molo:> seems to reflect an original *o recurring also in
a number of extra-Latin cognates. Such o-presents have been analysed as
a whole separate PIE conjugation (with *-h2a-type endings and *o/*e
ablaut) by Jasanoff (2003). Our list-member Jens Rasmussen believes that
Jasanoff's theory of o-presents is a monumental mistake and that the
o-type goes back to de-reduplicated intensive stems of the type
*m(e)lh2-molh2-. The debate will surely continue for a long time.

> 2. I didn't know that the vocalic laryngeals did not become
> respectively /o/ or/a/ in Slavic and Baltic. What are the Slavic and
> Baltic reflexes of vocalic laryngeals, e.g. in words similar to *dHtos,
> *dhHtos, *stHtos, etc.?

Such examples are hard to find, since most of the relevant forms have
been restructured in Balto-Slavic. Word medially, at least, the
laryngeals were dropped, but not without causing compensatory effects in
immediately preceding diphthongs and "vowel + liquid/nasal"
combinations. In an initial syllable between obstruents I would expect a
vocalic reflex; perhaps Slavic *sporU 'abundant, considerable' is a good
example, if cognate to Skt. spHirá-.

Piotr