Re: Greek Prothetic Vowel as Reflex of PIE Laryngeal (was: swallow v

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham" <richard@...> wrote:

>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@> wrote:
>
> > The Greek prothetic vowel is not a regular reflex of a PIE
> > laryngeal, cf. *h1ed- > odont- "tooth". Besides, loanwords do
> > strange things.
>
> The colouring of the prothetic vowel by an adjacent vowel rather
> than the by *h1 is one of these 'irregular rules' that bedevil
> comparative linguistics. For this word, cf. Aeolian Greek _édontes_
> 'teeth'. I don't know what to make of the accent placement in
> Aeolian Greek, though.

I think it can be explained like this: suppose the rule for the ablaut
vowel in PIE was: -é- in the stressed syllable, -o- in the next
(posttonic) syllable, zero elsewhere; and a paradigm

Nom. éd-onts
Obl. stem d-ént-

From this all sort of confusion arises, eg.

Nom. éd-onts
Obl. stem éd-ont-

or

Nom. d-énts
Obl. stem d-ént-

or

Nom. d-onts
Obl. stem d-ont-

or

Nom. éd-onts
Obl. stem od-ént-

->

Nom. od-onts
Obl. stem od-ént-

->

Nom. od-onts
Obl. stem od-ont-


Torsten