--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "david_russell_watson" <liberty@>
> wrote:
> >
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@> wrote:
> > >
> > > Also, it is strange that almost all IE languages agree that
> > > the otherwise non-affricated dentals of PIE suddenly should
> > > be assibilated when they meet.
> >
> > T. Burrow, I think it was, explained this as due to the
> > purely phonetic insertion of [s] between two voiceless
> > dental stops in P.I.E., or [z] between two voiced ones,
> > later eliminated in some branches, but phonemicized in
> > others.
>
> That makes no sense phonologically.
The rule is affirmed in the pdf at
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/DonRinge022009.pdf ,
linked from the page to which Daniel Milton directed us
at
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1160#more-1160 .
It says
"Schindler started from the fact that there was a
PIE phonological rule that inserted *s between two coronal
stops, i.e. *T+T > *TsT. That may seem strange, but it's
not doubtful, because the same rule still operates in our
attested Hittite; for instance, from (zero-grade) /ad-/
'eat' and present 2pl. subject ending /-te:ni/ you get
azteni [atste:ni] 'you guys eat'. (The rule isn't even as
strange as it seems. A similar rule operates in Pawnee,
a Caddoan language spoken on the other side of the world,
though the details are different; see Douglas R. Parks,
A grammar of Pawnee (New York 1976: Garland), pp. 14, 42-3)."
David