Funny W

[Koontz John E]

On Fri, 3 Nov 2006, Alan Knutson wrote:
> Just a thought here, could it be possible that these two sets, *W and
> *R, are the result of the loss of a nasal vowel between two like
> resonants with the nasal feature being retained.  For example **waNw...>
> *W and **raNr.. > *R

I think that's pretty much what Bob is saying when he traces *W and *R to
*wa-w... and *wa-r...  However, I don't think he requires them to be
nasal.  I'm not clear how much of the behavior of *W and *R is due to this
sort of ancestry in all cases.   It is clearly the case with places where
*pr > *R within Mississippi Valley.  However, it is not clear that all *R
and *W have this sort of explanation.  Perhaps they all reflect some sort
of lost initial element preceding *w and *r.

In spite of the OP evolution of *W and *R as m and n, I don't think we
need to assume a nasal vowel in a hypothetical lost prefixal element *CV-.
In fact, as long as we are assuming that *CV- is *wa- we would have
trouble justifying a nasal vowel here.  But we do know that there are
Siouan languages which lack nasal vowels (Hidatsa) and which nasalize all
initial resonants, at least in principle.