From: stlatos
Message: 59149
Date: 2008-06-09
>Nothing here is ad hoc; they apply to many words with o>a, not just one.
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "stlatos" <stlatos@> wrote:
> > I'm more partial to an explanation including:
> >
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, mkapovic@ wrote:
> >
> > > Lat. far and faba are not very conviencing in proving an IE *a
> since in
> > > Latin a/o difference is not very stabile after labials, that is
> *o tends
> > > to change to /a/ (mare, ca:seus, canis, parie:s, margo: etc.), cf.
> > > Schrijver 1991.
> > >
> > > Mate
>
> Latin <mare> and <lacus> go together in having /a/ where Celtic has
> reflexes of /o/. Both these geomorphic terms were most likely
> borrowed from a pre-Italic IE language which changed inherited /o/
> to /a/. Latin <canis> can only be shoehorned into the model of Greek
> <kúo:n> etc. with a whole slew of ad-hoc assumptions;
> Burrow'sThe rule was not necessarily completely regular. Ma:rs had long a.
> derivation from *kan- 'small' (TrPhS 81:155-64) is much simpler and
> better. Any greenhorn can find minimal pairs (portus/partus,
> mors/Mars) showing that the alleged instability of the Latin a/o
> distinction after labials is a bunch of baloney.
> > In any event, I think the *kWe in '4, 5' are the result of 'and'If schwa sec. existed in PIE, and so accounted for the oddities
> in
> > counting 1-10 being analyzed as part of the numbers. If so, no
> > *kWtru+, etc., existed.
>
> Oscan <trutum> 'quartum', for *ptrutum, shows that the zero-grade
> stem did indeed exist. The form <Ptroni(us)> from the Ager Paelignus
> shows that Paelignian also had *ptru-, without dropping the p-;
> likewise there is an Etruscan <Ptruni>, the gentilicium borrowed from
> one of these conservative P-Italic languages.
>
> Douglas G. Kilday