Re: Vedic Rta... one last time

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Sean Whalen <stlatos@...> wrote:

> --- Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:
>


> > Sean Whalen wrote:
> >
> > > What about the Old Persian forms? I don't think
> > > there's any possibility of hrt > s^ there. It
> > looks
> > > like free variation to me (with OP having a
> > greater
> > > tendency to analogic recreation of -ta-, etc.
> > >
> > > Av. OP
> > >
> > > m@...^a-/m@...@ta- marta- dead
> > > m@...@Tyu- mars^iyu- death
> > > mas^ya- martiya- mortal
> > > p@...^u-/p@...@tu- bridge
> > > as^a- ars^ta:- true, truth
> > >


> > Whatever happened in OP seems to be independent of
> > the Avestan
> > development, which is quite clearly correlated with
> > the location of
> > accent.

There are other explanations given at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avestan_phonology

none of which makes any sense.

The only possible explanation is free variation (shown by the same occurring in other Indo-Iranian l., as well as Armenian, etc.), of the form r.t. > r.s. ( > s.s.) > s. , among other free variation, such as in * tur.s.o+ > Armenian tHurc = cheek, tHus^ = cheek, tHuR = swelling (compare R / s^ variation in tHars^amim \ tHaRamim = wither ).