H1 and t??

[Glen Gordon]

ROBERT WHITING:
   Just out of curiosity, is there anything particular about 'lynx'
   that sets it apart from the numerous other words for animals and
   birds in Greek* that end with /x/, so that one might think that the
   final consonant cluster is ancient rather than being a secondary
   formation using a classificatory marker?

Thank God. A man with pertinent questions (... or woman, you never know
these days what with the faceless internet and all :) I would like to
know the answer to this as well, and why Greek's "intrusive" -k-'s are
supposed to be ancient rather than innovative - a question that remains
mostly neglected, to the contribution of my frustration.

JENS RASMUSSEN:
   [...]it IS a fact that the stative verbs (morpheme /-eH1-/ of Lat.
   sed-e:-re) and the neuter s-stems go together (Lat. sede:s 'seat';
   more impressively e.g. fri:gus/frigeo; rigor/rigeo; tepor/tepeo
   etc.), in that the s-stems denote the state something is in if the
   stative verb can be used about it (what friget is in frigore etc.).

Does this have anything to do with an IE *-st(i) ending, perhaps? (cf.
Hittite talukasti and OSlav. dlugosti)

JENS RASMUSSEN:
  Now, it is also a fact that s-stems have alternants with stm-final
  /t/: *nem-os/-es- 'worship', *nem-eto-s 'holy'; *lewk-ot/-es-
  'daylight', and the eternally troublesome *meH1-not-/*meH1-ns-
  'month' and the ptc. in *-wot-/-us-. These testify to the earlier
  existence of an independent phoneme (in PIE a morphophoneme) that
  could be posited as /c/ and given the "reading rule" that it is
  realized as /-s/ word-finally, and as /t-/ in other positions.

Gee, kind of sounds like that **-t > *-s rule that lil' Glenny's been
talkin' 'bout. Hmm, it would sure explain alot of things but I've been
mentioning it umpteen times already in previous messages. I guess it's
too straightforward a theory for people to swallow. It has to have
pizzazz and glitz, coated with sugar. We need to posit extra phonemes
and such to make it pretty. Poor ol' Occhim. Sigh. I give up. I need a
therapist ;(

JENS RASMUSSEN:
  It would be the IE marker of second person, verbal 2sg *-s, 2pl *-te
  (2du *-t- + unclear stuff, but surely something more than just the
   -t-),

Gee, maybe it's that **-t > *-s thing. Just a thought. Ooops, I forgot.
Too simple. We must posit **-c to cloak it in phonetic mystery. What was
the reason for **-c again?

JENS RASMUSSEN:
  pron. *tu, *t(w)e [I'll keep my derivation of *yu(:)s, *usme and
  *wos from protoforms with *t(w)- out of this]

Thanks, because there IS no connection between *tu: and *yus.

JENS RASMUSSEN:
  --- Now to the point: Is there any way of formulating a sound rule
  so as to get a stative noun *le'wk-ot/-es- to contain the same
  suffix as the stative verb *luk-e'H1-, i.e. have we any
  way of equating nominal //le'wk-ec-// and verbal //lewk-e'H1-//??

On an ironic note, if you simply accepted my **-t > *-s rather than an
off-the-wall **c phoneme, you would be closer to your sound rule goals,
in addition to <gasp> agreeing with a modified version of Miguel's
nonsensical sound change of **t > *H1, if you feel necessary to do.

JENS RASMUSSEN:
  So, if there is reason to believe that a pre-PIE *k could be
  spirantized to PIE *H2, as in the non-active 1sg marker (perfect
  *-H2a, middle thematic *-a-H2 corresponding to other Eurasian *-k),

If we truely want to "envisage" outside of PIE into the world of
Eurasiatic, I'm personally not aware of any examples of a /k/ in other
Eurasiatic languages aside from a lonely and bizarre Uralic language
called Hungarian that has many innovations besides the -k/-l
conjugation. I see more examples of an earlier 1rst person **-h<w>
though.

--------------------------------------------
Glen Gordon
glengordon01 at hotmail.com