From: Arnaud Fournet
Message: 61719
Date: 2008-11-18
----- Original Message -----
From: "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2008 12:03 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] consonantal O
>
> Pavel A. da Mek wrote:
>
>> 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.
============
Is it possible to explain what this consonantal /O/ means ?
This theory looks a bit amazing !?
A.
=======
>>
>>
>> *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?
>
> Jens's original argument was that the *O was syllabified first in heavy
> roots (and so was able to attract the accent):
>
> *pÓ.rh2-neh2 vs. *kOr-mós,
>
> but that indeed raises the question why the resulting vowel (or syllabic
> liquid, whatever the phonetic interpretation of *[O.]) did not prevent
> the loss of *h2. It's also strange that forms like *bHOh2-(m)néh2 did
> not lose their laryngeal in what was evidently a heavy cluster. I wonder
> if the accent shift is real. Consider the pair *h2wl.h1-náh2 'wool' vs.
> *wól-no-s 'curly'. To my simple mind, the former looks like the
> collective of the latter. It seems as if the loss of laryngeals caused
> by the O-fix (or the alternative -- the loss of *O) in overweight
> clusters had been younger than the rise of constrastive accent in such
> pairs! I think it's possible that the collective/mass noun never had the
> *O- prefix in the first place. Now, pór-nah2 is not a collective or a
> mas noun but simply the feminine form of *pór-no-, so it has the same
> accent pattern. But in pairs where both forms were common (e.g.
> *k^ól-mo- 'stalk' vs. *k^l.h2-máh2 'straw' levelling could be expected,
> both in their vocalism and the accentual pattern).
>
> Piotr
>
=========
My own theory about Saussure-Hirt's law,
which I may have already stated
is that H was erased not because of phonetic reasons but because of
"morpho-semantic" reasons.
Originally, before the developpement of verbal ablaut e/o to express
tenses/aspects,
the devices were suffixes H1 (ongoing) and w (=finished)
When the shift of systems began, forms like CoCH- were felt as uncomfortably
ambiguous
and H was erased to make sure this could be understood as being past.
A.
==========