From: stlatos
Message: 52944
Date: 2008-02-13
>Hittite didn't delete h before s (pahs-), the H3 (xW) became H1 (xY) before -sYkYe then
> On 2008-02-11 20:33, Patrick Ryan wrote:
>
> > Nor was it lengthened???
>
> It doesn't seem to have been. Its normal reflex is just *e:. The
> lengthened grade was not coloured by *h3 either; the showcase example is
> *g^ne:h3-s- > Hitt. gane:s(s)- 'recognise, find out', Toch. kn~as- 'find
> one's way' (Ved. ajn~a:sam).
--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:
>
> On 2008-02-12 09:25, Pavel A. da Mek wrote:
>
> >> (neither was long *e:, for that matter).
> >
> > This is less understandable;
> > the /e:/ from contraction could maybe be seen as /ee/ coloured to /ea/ and
> > then conracted to /e:/, but why was not coloured /e:/ from compensatory
> > lenghtening?
>
> I'm not quite sure about *e: from compensatory lengthening. Do you mean
> "Szemerényi" length in the nom.sg.? It is not compensatory, stictly
> speaking, since the vowel is lengthened also when no segments are lost,
> as in *dje:us. Secure examples with *-e:h2(s) or *-h2e:C-s may be
> difficult to find. What was definitely not coloured was "Narten" length,
> as in Hitt. hekur 'summit' < *h2e:k^-wr.
There is no reason for lengthening in this position. The change of stressed a>e when
kY>k before w caused this (as in ekw- / akw- 'drink').
A similar change in Slavic affected _unstressed_ e>i when a dental > 0 following C:
*temsa: > *tIma:
*ekYs > *is
*s.edtos > *s^IdU
*wekWsperaxa > *vIc^era: but with stressed e
*wekWsperos > *vec^erU
There is no reason to assume anything about some supposed PIE e/i variation from the
Slavic data, anymore than to assume a long e: of unknown origin which only appears in a
specific set of positions in a few languages, which indicates a simple group of regional
changes. There were dozens of V changes caused by CW>CY, etc., in various IE.
All of this is even more complicated; I'm sticking close to standard theory.