From: tgpedersen
Message: 47883
Date: 2007-03-15
>Countersuggestion: those cases are caused by 'reduced grade' of that
> On 2007-03-15 21:07, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> > I may be wrong, but it seems to me that the posited laryngeals in
> > roots of the form *HCVC occurs in only two functions: as *He-, in
> > which case they appear as the 'intended vowel' (which is the one
> > found in Greek and Armenian), and *H-, in which case they
> > disappear (in the other languages). Would it be possible to posit
> > a vowel instead, with suitable rules to achieve the same result?
> >
> >
> > Eg. *édons, *déntm etc
>
> But they also do other things; most notably, they lengthen (and/or
> otherwise modify) preceding syllabics in prefixations and compounds.
> Thus, *h1 is required in *h1ei- and *h1es- because of forms like
> 3pl.ipf. *é h1j-ent > Ved. a:yan and *n.-h1s-n.t- > Ved. a:sat-, and
> *h3 is required in *h3kW-, the zero grade of *h3okW-, because of,
> among others, *proti-h3kW-o-m > pre-Gk. *protjo:kWom > Gk. proso:pon
> 'face', cf. Skt. práti:ka-.