IE pers.pron. (dual forms)

Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen jer at cphling.dk
Wed Jun 9 17:15:01 UTC 1999


On Thu, 27 May 1999, Patrick C. Ryan wrote:

> [Jens:]

>> I meant "completely unknown for the language concerned", which of course
>> is what matters. I don't believe such a compensatory lengthening rule has
>> ever been known for Sanskrit. If you assume -uy > -u: in Sanskrit, it is
>> your task to demonstrate that there is such a "rule", meaning that the
>> same change occurs in other cases where -u- and final -y meet. It would be
>> an interesting discovery if you have examples to show that (for Sanskrit,
>> mind you).

> Pat responds:

> Gee, Jens, I thought you knew about IE *ai -> Sanskrit [e:], or is that not
> a lengthened vowel?

Jens objects:

My, Pat, that was not the rule we aere talking about. If you want to
invoke a change of uy to [u:] in Sanskrit, you should point to _that_
happening elsewhere in the language. Actualy, the regular Sanskrit
realization of /CwyC/ is [CviC], and the same holds if you substitute
word boundary (#) for any of the C's; examples of the former are
plentiful, as all compounds with first member dvi- 'two, double', while
the latter is harder to find, but cf. darvi voc. of darvi: 'wooden
laddle'. Whoever holds that /wy/ combines differently, will have to
produce examples - of this combination, not just change the subject to a
different one.

[...]


>>>>> Pat responded:

>>>>> Sorry, I cannot accept the idea that laryngeals still functioning in
>>>>> Sanskrit made yuge{'} sandhi-resistant.

[...]

> Jens counters:

>> But facts ought to be given explanations, and in this case it lies right
>> at hand. What is simpler than assuming that a neuter dual contains the
>> neuter dual ending? Now, in consonant stems the neuter dual in Sanskrit
>> ends in /-i:/. The most common (in Beekes' phonology, if I understand him
>> correctly, the only) source of that is a PIE sequence of i + laryngeal.
>> Then, if /yuge'/ is regular, and the stem is *yugo-, we are made to posit
>> *yugo-iH. That fully explains its sandhi-resistence, for before a vowel,
>> the H goes to the following syllable, leaving -oi to form a diphthong in a
>> syllable of their own, whence Skt. -e, even before vowel in the following
>> word.

> Pat, amazed again:

> Gosh, Jens, does not IE *e/oi -> Sanskrit [e:] also? Besides, 99% of the
> cases when <yuge{'}> will come before a vowel involve a following word the
> initial of which can anciently have been presumed to be derived from IE *H.

Jens objects:

Blimey, Pat, other words ending in Indo-Iranian *-ai (or *-ay, same thing)
do not show sandhi resistence. For instance, datives in -e always change
to -a before vowel initial. Strangely perhaps, it does not matter that the
following vowel-initial word has often earlier had an initial laryngeal.
Historical linguistics is often a very delicate matter, and you certainly
have to look at a language before making sweeping statements about it.

Jens



More information about the Indo-european mailing list