Linguist Forum
Specializations => Phonetics and Phonology => Topic started by: lingling on December 25, 2016, 04:38:11 AM
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I'm looking at the PIE roots in https://www.ahdictionary.com/word/indoeurop.html (https://www.ahdictionary.com/word/indoeurop.html) and I have some questions.
Why is "w" written in superscript in akw-ā- (Water)?
What does small circle under certain letters mean in dn̥ghū- (Tongue), euə-dh-r̥ (Udder) and wl̥kwo- (Wolf)?
What does ī̆mean in lī̆no- (Flax)?
I checked their guide but it doesn't explain these things https://www.ahdictionary.com/word/ieguide.html.
Thanks for your help.
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Most of your questions can be answered here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_phonology
Or maybe a little simpler here:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:About_Proto-Indo-European
The superscript w is a diacritic indicating that the consonant is labial (in this case, labiovelar). In other words, it's the "qu" sound in English, rather than a plain k.
The circle indicates a syllabic consonant (like English rhythM).
I'm not sure about the vowel, which looks like it is marking it as BOTH a short and a long vowel, according to general uses of those diacritic marks. It also cites Pokorny, whose work you can read here (in German):
https://archive.org/stream/indogermanisches02pokouoft#page/690/mode/2up
Doesn't look like there's any explanation of the orthography there, though, or in the first volume:
https://archive.org/details/indogermanisches01pokouoft
One possibility (just a guess) is that it might mean that it is EITHER short or long (either unknown, or that it varied?) -- maybe because different reflexes are found in different modern branches so it could be either one? That might be entirely wrong though.