*pr vs. *wr (RE: pomme de terre)

[Koontz John E]

On Sun, 3 Feb 2002, Rankin, Robert L wrote:
> I think the *pr cluster is really *wr.  Dakotan [b] is from */w/, not
> *p.

Incidentally, I should have put do for 'potato' in Ioway-Otoe, since we've
been trying to write the voiced stops for the voiced to voiceless
unaspirated cases.

It's true that [b] (sometimes w or m) is from *W, and that we have every
reason to suspect that in the first persons of *r verbs and others that
syncopate the first person was originally *wa, reduced to *w, but I don't
think it's actually possible to distinguish *w and *p in *wr and *pr
clusters, and, given the phonetics of the *<?>r clusters, I think *pr is
probably the more reasonable value.

The following table summarizes my impression of the *pr/*wr sets.  The
actual distinctions follow the environment, including morphological class
of root.  I've pondered this data from time to and not come up with any
way to divide it into *pr and *wr cases except possibly by looking outside
Mississippi Valley, and not always even then.  Within, any divvying up
seems a matter of arbitrary fiat.  So, I prefer to say that we can't
distinguish them and to reconstruct *pr, since we also have *kr, though
only two sets that might be *tr (or *tw), with the proviso that *w + r
certain behaves as *pr and may explain most cases of it.

In certain environments (varying with the dialect/branch) *pr behaves as
*pR (Dakotan) or simplifies to *R (Dhegiha, IO and Wi).  Where Dhegiha,
IO, and Wi retain the labial, the reflex of *r is proper for *r, not *R.
Nasality seems to keep roots in the *r category in all dialects, but the
labial is mostly lost in sync with the loss in the corresponding oral
cluster.  We're not sure about *R vs. *r vs. *n before nasal vowels, so
it's hard to say whether Dakotan mni 'water' for, say *priN 'water' is *R
or *r or even *n behavior.

Pre-PMV   PMV             Vwl  Sa   Te   OP    OS     IO       Wi
          *pr (verb root) oral md   bl   bdh   br     br       pVrV
                          nas  mn   mn   bdh   br     br       pVrV
          *pr (medially)  oral md   bl   n     t ~ c  d ~ j^   d
                          nas  mn   mn   bdh   br     n ~ n~*  n
**w-r     *p-r (inflctn)  oral m-d  b-l  b-dh  b-r    d ~ j^   d
                          nas  m-n  m-n  b-dh  b-r    n ~ n~   n
**wV-r    *pr (noun root) oral md   bl   n     t ~ c  d ~ j^   d
                          nas  mn   mn   n     n      n ~ n~   n

* => br in '8', otherwise n~ in '3' and 'bean'

x ~ y is represents examples before back/low and front/high vowels, for
which, in some cases, the relevant examples do not occur.

Santee md (of Riggs) is actually bd, as far as I know, in most places.
I'm not sure about the dialect of the Santee reservation in Nebraska.
Yankton has bd, too.  Stoney and Assiniboine have mn - at least that's the
simplified version for non-students - but Stoney simplifies this to m in
verb inflection.

Examples:

Inflection - *r stems, of which there are examples with nasal root vowels,
though not cognate forms that I recall of hand, though 'have' is fairly
reliable.

Medial - with nasal following vowels, 'three' and 'eight' (where derived
from 'three') and 'bean', which is essentially regular, though it looks to
be a loan word.  With following oral vowel, 'woman's older brother', which
looks like a compound of 'house' and 'male'.

Verb root initials - things like 'flat' (oral) and 'have an odor' (nasal)

Noun root initials - things like 'lake' and 'male' and 'potato' (oral) and
'water' (nasal)

JEK