Funny W. More cold water.

[Rankin, Robert L]

> Exactly what narrowly defined contexts are we talking about here?  I understand that *W and *R are virtually all word-initial before oral vowels.  Any other restrictions?

I haven't checked to see if the "oral" restriction is real.  Seems strange to me that it would be, but it's up to the evidence.  Altho' it might well be that you'd get /m/ and /n/ in the more nasal environment on a regular basis.

> I'd be very open to the idea that *W and *R result from an interaction of prefixes with root/stem initials.  That seems like a very reasonable explanation of their origin.  I don't think that should affect the question of their phonological configuration though, unless we can also estimate just what the hypothetical prefixes and initials were.

wa- 'absolutive'

wi- 'absolutive' for many animates

wa- '1st sg. actor'

As I've said before, those would be my guesses.  All three have tended to undergo syncope.  *R is the second member of a *w-r cluster in many cases.  Other instances aren't so clear, e.g., the doublet demonstratives, *re: and *Re:.  I suppose some sort of reduplication might have been involved in Re:, but that's speculation.  

Bob