--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
> > And I also believe that these verbal stems of the hi-conjugation
> > were nominal in nature. Cf. the words of the "language of bird
> > names".
> > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/25888
> >
> > Now watch me do tricks with my new nominal prefix:
> >
> > PPIE *pad- -> PIE *ped-
> > PPIE *a-pad- -> *i-pod- -> PIE *pod-
> >
> > Nice, huh? I get this free of charge by positing the prefix.
> > This ablaut relation is particularly hard to crack, since
> > there is normally not any surroundings to the root to "blame"
> > for the ablaut. The attempts I've seen to derive it from
> > different cases have not been convincing.
> >
>
> Alternative proposal for that nominal ablaut, independent of
> other IE phenomena:
>
> Piotr observes that the connecting vowel -i- in composites can
> be accounted for as part of a PPIE *-a-a- -> PIE *-i-o- rule.
> As a consequence we would have:
> PPIE *pad- -> PIE *ped- "foot"
> PPIE *X-a pad -> PIE *Xipod- "X-footer"
> from which languages might generalize one way or the other.
>
Jasanoff (as he's properly spelled)
Hittite and the Indo-European verb:
"
As I have suggested elsewhere (Jasanoff 1994: 164), the o-timbre of
the 3 sg. middle may have originated in a pre-PIE sound change that
converted unaccented word-final *-e-r to *-o-r in the nascent primary
ending. The operation of such a rule, limited to closed syllables and
perhaps sensitive to the character of the following consonant, would
also help explain phenomena like the post-tonic *-o- of PIE neuter
s-stems (type *g^énh1os < **-es 'race') and the *-o- of 'amphikinetic'
nominative singulars (type *dhég^h-ōm < **-om-s < **-em-s 'earth'), as
was pointed out to me by Jochem Schindler.60 Once established before
*-r in forms of the type *k^éy-o-r 'lies', an *-o- generated in this
way would have been well positioned to replace **-e by analogy in the
corresponding imperfect / injunctive **k^éy-e > *k^éy-o lay' and in
oxytone forms of the type **dhugh-é-r > *dhugh-ó-r 'furnishes', impf.
/ inj. **dhugh-é > *dhugh-ó.
"
It seems Jasanoff is coming close here to formulating a similar
'ding-dong' or 'i-pod' rule.
"
60 Schindler's classic study of PIE s-stems (1975 a) traces the
declension of the familiar s-stem type *génh1-os to an originally
'proterokίnetic' nom.-acc. *génh1-s-0, gen. *g^n.h1-és-s, dat.
*g^n.h1-és-ei, etc.; the actual Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit forms (Gk.
génos, géneos, génei; Lat. genus, generis, generi:, Skt. jánah.,
jánasah., jánase) point to an early levelling of e-grade in both the
root and suffix syllables, with a secondary change of *-e- to *-o- in
the nom.-acc. sg. In the amphikinetic declensional type (e.g. nom.
**dhég^h-om-s, gen. * dhg^h-m-és, dat. *dhg^h-m-éi, etc.), an
accent-conditioned rule taking *-e- to *-o- was long ago assumed by
Hirt (1900: 156) to explain the well-known Greek alternation pattern
paté:r : e`upáto:r. Another suggestive set of facts comes from the
distribution of *-e- and *-o- in thematic presents: l sg. primary
*-oh2, 1 sg. secondary *-om, 3 pl. primary *-onti, 3 pl. secondary
*-ont, and the optative complex *-oi(h1)- all show *-o- in a closed
syllable; 2 sg. primary *-esi, 3 sg. primary *-eti, and 2 pl. *-ete
have *-e- in an open syllable. Of the endings which violate this
pattern, 2 sg. secondary *-es and 3 sg. secondary *-et can easily be
explained as analogical to *-esi and *-etí, respectively, while the 1
pl. in *-ome, *-omes, etc. could have acquired its *-o- from the other
endings with *-o- before a nasal. There are also, of course, many
exceptions to the *-e- > *-o- rule showing that it was no longer
synchronically active in late PIE.
"
But then his restriction to closed syllables is causing him trouble
here; I believe the conditioning environment is a syllable that is
open in the other end, so to speak: PPIE *-aR- -> PIE *-oR-, but
PPIE *-CaC -> *-CeC-.
On the subject; I found this in Pokorny
"
av. ba:- 'scheinen' nur mit a:- (avå:nt&m 'den gleichenden'), fra:
(fra-va:iti .leuchtet hervor') und vi- (vi-ba:- feuchten', Benveniste
BSL. 32, 86 f.), vi:spo:-ba:m(y)a- ,allglänzend', ba:mya- ,licht,
glänzend', ba:nu- m. ,Licht, Strahl';
"
Why bh- -> v- in avå:nt&m, *bh- -> b- in vi-ba:- ?
Torsten