"syllabicity"

[Patrick C. Ryan]

Dear Peter and IEists:

 ----- Original Message -----
From: Peter &/or Graham <petegray at btinternet.com>
Sent: Sunday, April 18, 1999 5:37 AM

> Pat said:

> >I do not dispute that 'laryngeals' were consonantal in Nostratic but by
> >Indo-European, I believe their consonantal had been lost except for Hittite.

We have discussed the first point [a)].

> (b)

to be discussed later

> (c) Reduplication of roots beginning with a laryngeal.   We find an
> unexpected -i-: e.g. gan-igm-at < Hgen-Hgn-.

I am not really sure why this is unexpected. We are all familiar with
*p6te{'}:r (which is probably built on the root *pe/oH{2}), which yields
Sanskrit <pita{'}r->; this shows that a zero-grade of the second segment
regular shows up as <i> in Sanskrit.

> If the H at the beginning of
> the root had vanished, the -i- would not appear (as it does not in roots
> without initial H-)

I cannot see that this is really argued, only asserted. After all, the
conditioning environments are different. If the IE form had been
*H(e/o)gen-, there is no reason I know of to suppose that it could not have
occurred in Sanskrit (e.g. cf. <a{'}naH> from IE *He/onos) at some point as
*a(:)gan-. If we now give it a full reduplication, *a{:}"ganagan-, I see no
great hurdle in supposing that the stress-unaccented initial <a> of the
second syllable became Sanskrit <i> (*a{:}"ganigan-) and that the second
stress-unaccented <a> became zero-grade (*a{:}"ganig-n-), and that the first
vowel, if previously long, became first <a> (*a"ganig-n-) then <0>
(*[0]"ganig-n-)

> and if it had become a vowel, it would appear at the
> beginning of the reduplicated syllable as well.

Certainly, if stress-accented; and are you so sure it would show up if
stress-unaccented?

Now, it is certainly appropriate to ask why initial stress-unaccented <a>
*and* the final stress-unaccented <a> show up as <0> when the
stress-unaccented <a> of the reduplicated root shows up as <i>. If it were
<0> also, we would have (*[0]"gan-g-n-), something a little difficult to
pronounce, and which, without a euphonic vowel, would obscure the
reduplicated nature of the root.

> The only explanation is a
> consonantal H, which then shares the later usual interconsonantal
> development to -i-.
 <snip>

Well, here is an attempt at a possible explanation in addition to the "only"
explanation.

Pat
PATRICK C. RYAN (501) 227-9947; FAX/DATA (501)312-9947 9115 W. 34th St.
Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803 and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/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)