Re: [SPAM]Re: [SPAM][tied] comohota

Modern languages like English or French

have traditions : that is to say a lot of useless letters

inherited from previous languages

or previous habits about how to write previous languages.

Hence de-b-t, et caetera....

I suppose Umbrian had nothing like that,

2 000 years ago.

they started from nil and from a white page.

So why is it they wrote como-h-ota ?

It should be mo(:)ta. Somebody wrote it two days ago.

this leads to two questions :

1. why is it they wrote mota as mo-h-o-ta ?

2. why is it they chose -h- to display morphemic (?) cut ?

What does all this mean ??

Neither Greek nor Latin can be a "model" to create such a -h-.

You are selling the "just-forget-it" explanation.

I cannot buy this "explanation" :

it just does not sound as a possible explanation at all.

I am expecting something that looks like a real explanation.

What is a "spelling marker" ?

and what does it originate in ?

Arnaud

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

From: P&G

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2007 9:48 AM

Subject: Re: [SPAM]Re: [SPAM][tied] comohota

Why should we consider it a real phoneme? Any more than the written h in English "she" or "chair"? Or the b in "debt"? Why can't it just be a spelling marker either of length or of hiatus?

Peter

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

From: fournet.arnaud

To: cybalist@... s.com

Sent: Tuesday, December 04, 2007 6:48 PM

Subject: [SPAM]Re: [SPAM][tied] comohota

If this -h- were to be considered as a "real" phoneme,

what would it be ? *gh, *g, *gw ?

Arnaud

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

From: P&G

To: cybalist@... s.com

Sent: Tuesday, December 04, 2007 10:02 AM

Subject: Re: [SPAM][tied] comohota

>I have a question about
>Umbrian comohota = Latin offerta
>This word is supposed to be from root *meu
>Latin mov-ere and Lituanian mauti.
>What does this -h- in como-h-ota stand for ?

The process in Umbrian should be:
*move-to > *mov-to > *mouto > mo:to
with regular syncope, then regular change of -ou- to -o:-.

Umbrian spelling is, as one writer puts it, "as diverse as possible.
Various spellings of the same sound are used, sometimes wholly
promiscuously. " The sound /h/ was very weak, if not absent, in Umbrian, and
is commonly used as a sign of hiatus. This is in line with Rick
McCallister' s suggestion. The trouble is, this word should have no hiatus,
merely a single long vowel.

Perhaps we can guess it is merely an aberrant spelling.

Peter