"centum"/"satem" "exceptions" [was Re: Northwest IE attributes]

[Miguel Carrasquer Vidal]

roslyn frank <roz-frank at uiowa.edu> wrote:

>At 08:36 PM 2/3/00 EST, you wrote:
>>>frank at uiowa.edu writes:

>><< 1) what then is the standard reconstruction proposed for Skt. pu:r-, Greek
>>> <polis> and Baltic <pilis>? And the prototype meaning assigned to it?

>>-- *pelh(x), "fort, fortified place"..e.

>Could you elaborate a bit more in order to explain why the phonologicial
>shape of the Gk. and Baltic items take precedence over that of the Skt.
>pu:r-?

*pelH- is just the root.  The actual word here is *pl.H-is
(*pl.H-s for Sanskrit).  It's not a question of precedence,
merely soundlaws.  The correspondences are exact.

Skt.  pu:r < pu:l < *pl.H(s)
Skt.  purih. < *pulis < *pl.=His
Grk.  polis  < *pl.=His
Lith. pilis  < *pl.=His

(syllabic *-l.- > -ur- in Skt., -ol- in Grk., -il- in Baltic)
(long syllabic *-l.:- (<*-l.H-) > -u:r- in Skt.)

>>There's also *uriien, 'fort', which gives Mycenaean 'rijo', promontory, and
>>Tocharian 'ri', 'town'.

>Do these examples imply that there was a loss of the initial plosive in the
>last example and that one could posit an earlier *<uri> or perhaps *<iri>
>for Tocharian?

The initial was *w- (not a plosive).  *wr- > Toch. r- (cf.
English).  I thought it was *wriya: (Thracian <bria> "city").

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl