Fun with prenasalized stops.txt

From: tgpedersen
Message: 47212
Date: 2007-02-02

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham" <richard@...> wrote:
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@> wrote:
>
> > Or rather, the PIE root was really *NgWou, *NgWu- and the
> > tradtional PIE phonemes b, d, g^, g, gW are not glottalized as G/I
> > want, but prenasalized: Mb, Nd, Ng^, N,g, N,gW.
>
> Glottalised is rather a vague term. In the preglottalised series
> it's the back consonant which is most likely to be omitted, as
> opposed to the ejective series, where it's the labial that is most
> likely to be missing. In a prenasalised series, it's the labial
> that's most likely to be missing.

Some say the missing PIE b should be sought in the abundance of PIE
w's. If voiced stops were prenasalized, that consonant which is Nb in
the system would be in reality a Nw or mW, which is nice, since we
already need a consonant which could morph into m and w at the right
places, ie 1pl, -ment-/-went- etc.

BTW:
Let's pretend voiced stops were prenasalized (*Nb, *Nd, *Ng^, *Ng,
*NgW), and that they became nasal + stop if initial in the stressed
syllable (ie *-NDV´- -> *-N-DV´-; the second hyphen is purely formal,
caused by the fact that nasal vowels are written *VN and nasals *N).

Imagine a PIE root *eNb-.
3sg *eNb-ti -> *e:pti
3pl *Nb-énti -> *mW-énti
ppp *Nb-tó- -> *m.p-tó-

from that one might construct
Latin
pres. em-

Hittite
3sg e:pzi
3pl appanzi
Latin aptus (with analogous vowel)

Latin
e:mptus

etc

And the semantics is nice too: acquire, ergreifen etc.

One entry less in LIV!


Torsten