On Sat, 11 Feb 2006 06:42:05 -0800 (PST), george knysh
<
gknysh@...> wrote:
>1. We are told that Tocharian separated from other
>"eastern" IE languages prior to the satemization
>process. What is the current explanation for Toch.
>"four" (STWAR (A) STWER (B)< PIE *kwetwor) How does
>one get that "S"? Is it some sort of late prefix to an
>earlier development *kwetwor --> *tw(a,e)r, or is the
>"S" an indication that Toch. was influenced by
>satemization in this instance just before "moving
>away"?
Not really. Practically all consonants underwent
palatalization before front vowels (and /j/) at some
unspecified stage of Proto-Tocharian (except /j/ itself, and
/r/, /p/ and /m/, which may have been palatalized initially,
but lost the palatalization later). We have <c> (/c^/) from
*/t'/; <s'> [ToA] or <ts> [ToB] from */k'/ (from palatalized
*k, *k^ and *kW) and */d/ > */c/; <s.> = /s^/ from */s'/;
<ñ> from */n'/, <ly> from */l'/ and ToB <y> from */w'/ (ToA
<w> with depalatalization).
The palatlization are unsurprising in a language where short
*i, *e and *u merged as <ä> (the two former with
palatalization), and *e: and *o merged as <e>, (the latter
without palatalization).
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...