Re: Verner-alternating Gmc. nouns

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:

>
> On 2008-12-20 12:34, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> > The alternations going the way they do in these glosses, that
> > would mean an alternation between stressed o-grade and pretonic
> > o-grade. That is not possible.
>
> It _is_ possible. For example, *tómh1os type nouns (in which the
> initial accent was secondary anyway) had fixed root accent, but
> their collectives had contrastive accent on the *-ah2 ending.

The reason *tómos type nouns have initial stress is that they are
de-compounded verbal stems, if memory serves. Very few of those on the
list are; in general they don't seem to be obvious compound-material.

> This kind of accentuation remained productive longer than
> quantitative ablaut, and so it didn't cause the reduction of the
> root vowel.

I think you mean to say that tómos/tomós type generation became
independently productive. On verbal stems, that is.

> Besides, Proto-Germanic levelled out the vocalism of noun forms in
> most instances.

Proto-Germanic and whichever loan donor languages it had.

> Some of the Gmc. *a's reflect PIE *a's, especially where coloured
> by *h2, as in *h2antio-

Now I don't recall what Hittite says there, but it has cognates in
either Semitic or Egyptian, which means it's likely a loan.


Torsten