Re: [tied] PIE athematic neuters

----- Original Message -----

From: Miguel Carrasquer

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Saturday, March 18, 2006 6:53 PM

Subject: Re: [tied] PIE athematic neuters

On Wed, 15 Mar 2006 12:27:24 -0500, andrew jarrette
<jarretteandrew@...> wrote:

>Thanks. But why do you suspect that most neuter u-stems were actually
>r/n heteroclitics? I fail to see the connection.

It's a conclusion drawn from two sources.  The first follows
from my speculations about pre-PIE vocalism, where I suspect
that an earlier 3x2 vowel system (*/a/, */i/, */u/; */a:/,
*/i:/, */u:/) fell together as */e/; */o/, */e:/ (and zero).
The effect of stressed *ú(:) on a following *t is
interesting: it turns up as PIE *s.  The standard example is
*méh1no:ts, *m(e)h1nésos "moon, month", which I would derive
from **mát-nu:t-s, *mat-nút-a:s (> *m@...:s > *m@...
> *meh1nésos).  When the *u stands at the beginning of a
morpheme, it goes to *we/*u instead of *e, as in the pf.
ptc., say *wéid-wo:t-s, *wid-ús-os.

If *t is labialized by a preceding stressed *u (and *k, *g,
*gh are labialized to *kW, *gW, *ghW by _any_ neighboring
*u), perhaps other coronals show the same phenomenon.  The
obvious place to look is *n, wich may have been labialized
to *nW > mW > m ~ w.

***

Patrick:

 

This is more of what I call 'musical phones'; a sad attempt to relate the unrelatable by postulating a series of peculiar sound changes which cannot be supported by any evidence — only pure stream of consciousness.

 

What Miguel asks us to accept in the above analysis is that pre-Nostratic *t, when avocalic, becomes PIE *H1, for which there is no proof whatsoever. PIE was not, after all, a Cockney dialect!

 

He then supposes that pre-Nostratic -*ú(:)ta:- becomes PIE -*éso- (skipping Nostratic, I guess). There is not a shred of evidence for such a change either. 

 

Next on the unbelievable list, he asserts that "*k, *g, *gh are labialized to *kW, *gW, *ghW by _any_ neighboring *u" which is a bald assertion without any supporting data, and for which, none exists.

 

Finally, the equation "*nW > mW > m ~ w", which also cannot be proved or even shown to be possible, let alone probable.

 

***

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