consonantal O

From: Pavel A. da Mek
Message: 61714
Date: 2008-11-18

I wonder what relative chronology of the sound changes would allow both
the loss of a laryngeal after the consonantal O and the shift of the
stress.
If the loss of the laryngeal precedes the vocalisation, then the root
would become light and the O would be vocalised only at the second
vocalisation after the period of the accent shift; and the result would
be PIE. /$*pornáH2/, Greek /$*porné:/.

*O-perH2-men-é-H2; then the metathesis of O to the end of the C cluster:
*pOerH2-men-é-H2; then the loss of unaccented vowels:
*pOrH2-mn-é-H2; then mn > n after a vowelless sequence containing a
labial:
*pOrH2-n-é-H2; then the loss of the laryngeal in a complex cluster:
*pOr-n-é-H2; then the 1st vocalisation does not occur
thus neither the stress shift,
and only then occurs the 2nd vocalisation:
OPIE. $*por-n-é-H2; then the the coloring:
PIE. $*por-n-á:H2
Greek $porné:

OTOH, if the vocalisation comes before the loss of the laryngeal, then
there would be no more any reason to delete the laryngeal; and the
result would be PIE. /$*pór&2náH2/, Greek /$*porané:/.

*O-perH2-men-é-H2; then the metathesis of O to the end of the C cluster:
*pOerH2-men-é-H2; then the loss of unaccented vowels:
*pOrH2-mn-é-H2; then mn > n after a vowelless sequence containing a
labial:
*pOrH2-n-é-H2; then the 1st vocalisation O > o in a heavy root:
*porH2-n-é-H2; then the stress shift:
OPIE. $*pórH2-n-e-H2; then the coloring:
PIE. $*pór&2n-a:H2
Greek $pórane:

So it seems to me that the loss of the laryngeal and the 1st
vocalisation had to work simultaneously - if the clusters was too
complex, then it was simplified by deleting of the laryngeal AND by the
vocalisation of the consonantal /O/, although either of these two
changes would alone be enough to get an acceptable cluster.


*O-perH2-men-é-H2; then the metathesis of O to the end of the C cluster:
*pOerH2-men-é-H2; then the loss of unaccented vowels:
*pOrH2-mn-é-H2; then mn > n after a vowelless sequence containing a
labial:
*pOrH2-n-é-H2; and the simplification of the cluster:
*por-n-é-H2; then the stress shift:
OPIE. *pór-n-e-H2; then the coloring:
PIE. *pór-n-a:H2
Greek pórne:

Did I get it correctly?

(BTW, is there already a recommended orthography for the consonantal O?
At the time of the metathesis it was phonetically [R], but the phoneme
/R/ would collide with the wildcard for "any resonat", so I suppose that
the least confusing choice would be the upperase /O/, with the syllabic
alophone /O./; thus we could write PIE. *pór-n-a:H2 as *pÓ.r-n-a:H2 to
clearly show the origin of the vowel.)

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because of its highly pÓ.r-n-o-grabh-ek-o-z content :-)