IE pers.pron. (dual forms)

[Patrick C. Ryan]

Dear Jens and IEists:

 ----- Original Message -----
From: Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen <jer at cphling.dk>
Sent: Wednesday, May 26, 1999 7:52 AM

>>>> Pat asked:

>>>>>> Why cannot su:nu{'}- + -y yield su:nu:{'} with compensatory lengthening?

>>>> Jens responded:

>>>>> There is no such rule. In one instance, a stem amu- got segmented off
>>>>> by a funny analogy in the inflection of the pronoun asau 'that one'
>>>>> (acc.sg.M amu-m) and was used in the formation of a pl. with /-y/, this
>>>>> giving ami:, not **amu:.

>>>> Pat responded:

>>>> I think it is dangerous to assume that combinatory rules have acted
>>>> identically at different periods, do you not?

>> Jens objected:

>>> Sure, but you were using completely unknown rules.

>> Pat rejoinds:

>> Since when is compensatory lengthening "unknown"?

> 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?

>>>> Pat responded:

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

>>> It is a descriptive fact,

>> Pat rejoinds:

>> Your idea of a "fact" and mine are obviously totally different. That yuge{'}
>> may be sandhi-resistant could be a fact. That the cause is your convenient
>> laryngeal, is not!

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.