----- Original Message -----From: Piotr GasiorowskiSent: Thursday, September 14, 2006 4:16 AMSubject: Re: [tied] Compensatory lengthening<snip>
The actual form of the nom.sg. was *po:ds, phonetically *[po:ts], and
simplifications of the final cluster are branch-specific (cf. Skt. pa:t
with regular t < *ts). The length isn't compensatory, or to be more
precise it doesn't compensate for a lost segment. The nom.sg. *-s (but
not just any *-s!) lengthens vowels in the final syllables of
consonantal stems irrespective of whether it stays or goes (as in
*p&2té:r, etc.). It was lost after *r, *n, *s and *j (probably also
after *m and *l), but not e.g. in *wo:kW-s, *k^lo:p-s, *népo:t-s or
*dié:u-s, where we find length nevertheless. Jens's hypothesis is that
the nom.sg. ending was originally voiced *-z rather than *-s, and that
the difference has something to do with the phonetic lengthening
(phonemicised upon the merger of *-z with *-s). The o-colour of the
thematic vowel in the nom.sg. *-o-s is also ascribed to the original
voicing of *-z.
***Firstly, there is no mechanism with which I am familiar that would allow nom. sg. -*s BUT not any other -*s to lengthen a preceding root vowel. Unless someone can provide a believable mechanism, I believe it is only reasonable to hypothesize that some other phenomenon occurred WITH nom. sg. -*s but NOT WITH other -*s. And that two phenomena occasioned the lengthened root vowel, one of which was subsequently lost.
A possible candidate for this second phenomenon is a missing vowel: **wokWés- > *wó:kWs-.
The likeliest explanation for any incidence of vowel lengthening is compensation.
A connection which should be considered is the possibly related lengthening of the root vowel in the -*s-aorist: *wég^h- > *wé:g^hs- (from *wog^hés- ???).
If the -*s in the aorist converts a lexical durative into a punctual, which can be characterized as singularizing, perhaps similar explanation should be considered for nominal -*s, I.e. that it singularizes a nominal (plural) **CoCé.
An additional consideration is the well-known shift of stress-accent on the root-vowel in singular verbal forms to the thematic vowel (or verbal inflection) in plural verbal forms.
Patrick
***