What is the PIE reconstruction for word-initial alpha with rough breathing?
What is the PIE reconstruction for word-initial alpha with rough breathing? My concern is the tendency (popularly) to mistake initial alpha as privative when it is not (e.g. hamartia): The easiest case, I suppose, is the rough breathing, in which case, am I right to imagine a reconstructed *ha? The question is relevant also, however, with any genuinely alpha-initial root.
Thank you.
historical-linguistics
asked 5 hours ago
Nathan LeflerNathan Lefler
61
New contributor
Nathan Lefler is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
add a comment |
What is the PIE reconstruction for word-initial alpha with rough breathing? My concern is the tendency (popularly) to mistake initial alpha as privative when it is not (e.g. hamartia): The easiest case, I suppose, is the rough breathing, in which case, am I right to imagine a reconstructed *ha? The question is relevant also, however, with any genuinely alpha-initial root.
Thank you.
historical-linguistics
asked 5 hours ago
Nathan LeflerNathan Lefler
61
New contributor
Nathan Lefler is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
Good question! But I'd recommend breaking the second part of the question ("what about word-initial alpha with smooth breathing?") off into its own question. I can give an answer to that too, but it's a separate thing.
– Draconis
3 hours ago
add a comment |
What is the PIE reconstruction for word-initial alpha with rough breathing? My concern is the tendency (popularly) to mistake initial alpha as privative when it is not (e.g. hamartia): The easiest case, I suppose, is the rough breathing, in which case, am I right to imagine a reconstructed *ha? The question is relevant also, however, with any genuinely alpha-initial root.
Thank you.
historical-linguistics
asked 5 hours ago
Nathan LeflerNathan Lefler
61
New contributor
Nathan Lefler is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
What is the PIE reconstruction for word-initial alpha with rough breathing? My concern is the tendency (popularly) to mistake initial alpha as privative when it is not (e.g. hamartia): The easiest case, I suppose, is the rough breathing, in which case, am I right to imagine a reconstructed *ha? The question is relevant also, however, with any genuinely alpha-initial root.
Thank you.
historical-linguistics
historical-linguistics
asked 5 hours ago
Nathan LeflerNathan Lefler
61
New contributor
Nathan Lefler is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
asked 5 hours ago
Nathan LeflerNathan Lefler
61
New contributor
Nathan Lefler is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
asked 5 hours ago
Nathan LeflerNathan Lefler
61
New contributor
Nathan Lefler is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
asked 5 hours ago
Nathan LeflerNathan Lefler
61
asked 5 hours ago
Nathan LeflerNathan Lefler
61
61
New contributor
Nathan Lefler is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
New contributor
Nathan Lefler is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
Nathan Lefler is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
Good question! But I'd recommend breaking the second part of the question ("what about word-initial alpha with smooth breathing?") off into its own question. I can give an answer to that too, but it's a separate thing.
– Draconis
3 hours ago
add a comment |
Good question! But I'd recommend breaking the second part of the question ("what about word-initial alpha with smooth breathing?") off into its own question. I can give an answer to that too, but it's a separate thing.
– Draconis
3 hours ago
Good question! But I'd recommend breaking the second part of the question ("what about word-initial alpha with smooth breathing?") off into its own question. I can give an answer to that too, but it's a separate thing.
– Draconis
3 hours ago
Good question! But I'd recommend breaking the second part of the question ("what about word-initial alpha with smooth breathing?") off into its own question. I can give an answer to that too, but it's a separate thing.
– Draconis
3 hours ago
add a comment |
1 Answer
1
active
oldest
votes
Hamartía "sin" is a hard example to use, because to my knowledge, hamartánō "to sin" has no known IE cognates. This means there's no way to check or confirm reconstructions, and it may not come from PIE at all. Instead, I'm going to use háls "salt".
In general, /h/ in any Indo-European language (except Hittite!) has nothing to do with PIE laryngeals like *h₁. The laryngeals disappeared very early and are only visible by the effects they had on surrounding sounds.
In Ancient Greek in particular, /h/ usually came from an earlier *s before a vowel. (Later, it disappeared when it wasn't at the start of a word; even later, it disappeared everywhere.) So the reconstructed PIE for "salt" was something like *séh₂l-s, as seen in Latin sāl and English salt.
This is also where the prefix ha- "together" came from: the PIE ancestor is reconstructed as *sṃ, as seen in Latin forms like simplex and semel. In Greek, *ṃ turned into a, and the *s turned into h, giving the ha- found in Hāidēs, haploûs, hápas, and so on.
P.S. Sometimes you won't see an /h/ where you might expect one, as in adelphós, which has that same ha- prefix. This is due to "Grassmann's Law": if you have two or more aspirated consonants in a word, all but the last one lose their aspiration. This is why you see héksō alongside ékhō: in the future tense, the khs simplifies into k, which allows the original h at the beginning to show through.
answered 4 hours ago
DraconisDraconis
12.7k12053
add a comment |
Your Answer
StackExchange.ready(function() {
var channelOptions = {
tags: "".split(" "),
id: "312"
};
initTagRenderer("".split(" "), "".split(" "), channelOptions);
StackExchange.using("externalEditor", function() {
// Have to fire editor after snippets, if snippets enabled
if (StackExchange.settings.snippets.snippetsEnabled) {
StackExchange.using("snippets", function() {
createEditor();
});
}
else {
createEditor();
}
});
function createEditor() {
StackExchange.prepareEditor({
heartbeatType: 'answer',
autoActivateHeartbeat: false,
convertImagesToLinks: false,
noModals: true,
showLowRepImageUploadWarning: true,
reputationToPostImages: null,
bindNavPrevention: true,
postfix: "",
imageUploader: {
brandingHtml: "Powered by u003ca class="icon-imgur-white" href="https://imgur.com/"u003eu003c/au003e",
contentPolicyHtml: "User contributions licensed under u003ca href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"u003ecc by-sa 3.0 with attribution requiredu003c/au003e u003ca href="https://stackoverflow.com/legal/content-policy"u003e(content policy)u003c/au003e",
allowUrls: true
},
noCode: true, onDemand: true,
discardSelector: ".discard-answer"
,immediatelyShowMarkdownHelp:true
});
}
});
Nathan Lefler is a new contributor. Be nice, and check out our Code of Conduct.
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function () {
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
});
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
StackExchange.ready(
function () {
StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2flinguistics.stackexchange.com%2fquestions%2f31072%2fwhat-is-the-pie-reconstruction-for-word-initial-alpha-with-rough-breathing%23new-answer', 'question_page');
}
);
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
1 Answer
1
active
oldest
votes
1 Answer
1
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
Hamartía "sin" is a hard example to use, because to my knowledge, hamartánō "to sin" has no known IE cognates. This means there's no way to check or confirm reconstructions, and it may not come from PIE at all. Instead, I'm going to use háls "salt".
In general, /h/ in any Indo-European language (except Hittite!) has nothing to do with PIE laryngeals like *h₁. The laryngeals disappeared very early and are only visible by the effects they had on surrounding sounds.
In Ancient Greek in particular, /h/ usually came from an earlier *s before a vowel. (Later, it disappeared when it wasn't at the start of a word; even later, it disappeared everywhere.) So the reconstructed PIE for "salt" was something like *séh₂l-s, as seen in Latin sāl and English salt.
This is also where the prefix ha- "together" came from: the PIE ancestor is reconstructed as *sṃ, as seen in Latin forms like simplex and semel. In Greek, *ṃ turned into a, and the *s turned into h, giving the ha- found in Hāidēs, haploûs, hápas, and so on.
P.S. Sometimes you won't see an /h/ where you might expect one, as in adelphós, which has that same ha- prefix. This is due to "Grassmann's Law": if you have two or more aspirated consonants in a word, all but the last one lose their aspiration. This is why you see héksō alongside ékhō: in the future tense, the khs simplifies into k, which allows the original h at the beginning to show through.
answered 4 hours ago
DraconisDraconis
12.7k12053
add a comment |
Hamartía "sin" is a hard example to use, because to my knowledge, hamartánō "to sin" has no known IE cognates. This means there's no way to check or confirm reconstructions, and it may not come from PIE at all. Instead, I'm going to use háls "salt".
In general, /h/ in any Indo-European language (except Hittite!) has nothing to do with PIE laryngeals like *h₁. The laryngeals disappeared very early and are only visible by the effects they had on surrounding sounds.
In Ancient Greek in particular, /h/ usually came from an earlier *s before a vowel. (Later, it disappeared when it wasn't at the start of a word; even later, it disappeared everywhere.) So the reconstructed PIE for "salt" was something like *séh₂l-s, as seen in Latin sāl and English salt.
This is also where the prefix ha- "together" came from: the PIE ancestor is reconstructed as *sṃ, as seen in Latin forms like simplex and semel. In Greek, *ṃ turned into a, and the *s turned into h, giving the ha- found in Hāidēs, haploûs, hápas, and so on.
P.S. Sometimes you won't see an /h/ where you might expect one, as in adelphós, which has that same ha- prefix. This is due to "Grassmann's Law": if you have two or more aspirated consonants in a word, all but the last one lose their aspiration. This is why you see héksō alongside ékhō: in the future tense, the khs simplifies into k, which allows the original h at the beginning to show through.
answered 4 hours ago
DraconisDraconis
12.7k12053
add a comment |
Hamartía "sin" is a hard example to use, because to my knowledge, hamartánō "to sin" has no known IE cognates. This means there's no way to check or confirm reconstructions, and it may not come from PIE at all. Instead, I'm going to use háls "salt".
In general, /h/ in any Indo-European language (except Hittite!) has nothing to do with PIE laryngeals like *h₁. The laryngeals disappeared very early and are only visible by the effects they had on surrounding sounds.
In Ancient Greek in particular, /h/ usually came from an earlier *s before a vowel. (Later, it disappeared when it wasn't at the start of a word; even later, it disappeared everywhere.) So the reconstructed PIE for "salt" was something like *séh₂l-s, as seen in Latin sāl and English salt.
This is also where the prefix ha- "together" came from: the PIE ancestor is reconstructed as *sṃ, as seen in Latin forms like simplex and semel. In Greek, *ṃ turned into a, and the *s turned into h, giving the ha- found in Hāidēs, haploûs, hápas, and so on.
P.S. Sometimes you won't see an /h/ where you might expect one, as in adelphós, which has that same ha- prefix. This is due to "Grassmann's Law": if you have two or more aspirated consonants in a word, all but the last one lose their aspiration. This is why you see héksō alongside ékhō: in the future tense, the khs simplifies into k, which allows the original h at the beginning to show through.
answered 4 hours ago
DraconisDraconis
12.7k12053
Hamartía "sin" is a hard example to use, because to my knowledge, hamartánō "to sin" has no known IE cognates. This means there's no way to check or confirm reconstructions, and it may not come from PIE at all. Instead, I'm going to use háls "salt".
In general, /h/ in any Indo-European language (except Hittite!) has nothing to do with PIE laryngeals like *h₁. The laryngeals disappeared very early and are only visible by the effects they had on surrounding sounds.
In Ancient Greek in particular, /h/ usually came from an earlier *s before a vowel. (Later, it disappeared when it wasn't at the start of a word; even later, it disappeared everywhere.) So the reconstructed PIE for "salt" was something like *séh₂l-s, as seen in Latin sāl and English salt.
This is also where the prefix ha- "together" came from: the PIE ancestor is reconstructed as *sṃ, as seen in Latin forms like simplex and semel. In Greek, *ṃ turned into a, and the *s turned into h, giving the ha- found in Hāidēs, haploûs, hápas, and so on.
P.S. Sometimes you won't see an /h/ where you might expect one, as in adelphós, which has that same ha- prefix. This is due to "Grassmann's Law": if you have two or more aspirated consonants in a word, all but the last one lose their aspiration. This is why you see héksō alongside ékhō: in the future tense, the khs simplifies into k, which allows the original h at the beginning to show through.
answered 4 hours ago
DraconisDraconis
12.7k12053
answered 4 hours ago
DraconisDraconis
12.7k12053
answered 4 hours ago
DraconisDraconis
12.7k12053
answered 4 hours ago
DraconisDraconis
12.7k12053
12.7k12053
add a comment |
add a comment |
Nathan Lefler is a new contributor. Be nice, and check out our Code of Conduct.
Nathan Lefler is a new contributor. Be nice, and check out our Code of Conduct.
Nathan Lefler is a new contributor. Be nice, and check out our Code of Conduct.
Nathan Lefler is a new contributor. Be nice, and check out our Code of Conduct.
Thanks for contributing an answer to Linguistics Stack Exchange!
- Please be sure to answer the question. Provide details and share your research!
But avoid …
- Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers.
- Making statements based on opinion; back them up with references or personal experience.
To learn more, see our tips on writing great answers.
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function () {
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
});
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
StackExchange.ready(
function () {
StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2flinguistics.stackexchange.com%2fquestions%2f31072%2fwhat-is-the-pie-reconstruction-for-word-initial-alpha-with-rough-breathing%23new-answer', 'question_page');
}
);
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function () {
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
});
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function () {
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
});
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function () {
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
});
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Good question! But I'd recommend breaking the second part of the question ("what about word-initial alpha with smooth breathing?") off into its own question. I can give an answer to that too, but it's a separate thing.
– Draconis
3 hours ago