pre-IE k > H

[proto-language]

Dear Carol and IEists:

 ----- Original Message -----
From: "Carol F. Justus" <cjustus at mail.utexas.edu>
Sent: Friday, March 24, 2000 3:19 PM

[ moderator snip ]

[ Moderator note:
  The following was quoted by Carol Justus from a posting by Eric Plourde
  (plourer at MAGELLAN.UMontreal.CA) on 16 March 2000.  My apologies for not
  having added the citation information before.
  --rma ]

>> Actually, this phonological change is quite common in other language groups,
>> for example in PF-U *k- becomes h- in Hungarian (but stays k- in Finnish)
>> when it is followed by vowels such as a or o. It parallels IE examples
>> (including the one you have mentioned) and Sino-Tibetan examples

[CJ]
> I wonder if it is not important to distinguish between a *k > h (such as
> happened in Germanic (e.g., cornu, 'horn') and *k- > largyngeal written in
> Hittite with a sound transcribed as 'h' with a diacritic under it?

[PR]
It is, of course, vital.

Although I can find much in Greenberg's book to praise, I suspect this
suggestion of his will reveal itself as poorly conceived --- perhaps based
on something as ethereal as Hittite [h].

I believe the fundamental problem here is a reluctance to assume different
origins for morphemes that semantically were closely related and merged.

Greenberg suggested that IE feminine -*(i)H(2)a: might be derived from
*-(i)ko, a formant used in various language as a diminutive (p. 166).

Based on my research, in addition to a formant that would appear in IE as
*ke/o ('child'), there is another formant, *H(2)e/o (better, **-a:, I
believe), with the basic meaning 'hollow', which, for obvious reasons,
became a designation of females based on sexual characteristics, and was
used as a feminine formant.

The reason for my original question was that I consider this suggestion of
his highly unlikely, and  that the variant forms for 'bone' etc. have
another better explanation.

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit ek,
at ek hekk, vindga meipi, nftr allar nmu, geiri undapr . . . a ~eim meipi er
mangi veit hvers hann af rstum renn." (Havamal 138)