Re: s->h

Joachim Pense pravi:
> In classical Greek, an original word-initial *s developed into h.
> (compare Latin "sex", Greek "hex" for the number 'six').
>
> In Sanskrit, an original word-final *s developed into h. (compare
> Latin "sumus", Skr. "smaH").
>
> What would be a plausible development path from s to h? I have
> difficulties imagining one.
>
> Joachim

I have no idea about the sound changes, I can only compare words in Slovene and Sanskrit. It seems that there are more ways in which 's' has changed, but I don't see a change into h or maybe there was a 'h' and it was changed further/deleted:

- in short versions for personal pronouns (clitics?) the final -s remained the same: in Sanskrit you have in 1st pers. plur. 'nas' in Acc., Dat. and Gen. In Slovene those pronouns are 'nas' in Gen., 'nam' in Dat. and again 'nas' in Acc. (similarly in 2nd person with 'vas').

(Comparison of other numbers: Acc., Dat., Gen. sing. - mā/me/me in Skt. and me/mi/me in Slov.; dual - nau/nau/nau in Skt. and naju/nama/naju in Slov.)

- Why are there no short personal pronouns in Sanskrit for the 3rd person? They exist in Slovene with a final -h (in plurals): jih/jim/jih.
Maybe this -h developed somehow from some word with final -s? (other forms sing: masc./neut.: ga/mu/ga, fem.: jo/ji/je; dual: ju/jima/ju).

- In verbs, the final -s was deleted somehow: I already quoted the forms of the root plu (to swim), and for the verb ās 'to be': dual: svas, sthas, stas -> sva, sta, sta; plus, 3rd.pers: smas -> smo

- Are you sure that there was s->h change for the word initial s- from Latin to Greek? Maybe your statement about 'six' is correct, but is the example as well? The word starts with a 'š/sh/ṣ' (unvoiced retroflex sibilant) in Sanskrit and in Slovene: 'ṣaṣ', 'šest'. Maybe the orignal word had a 'sh' and it changed to 's' in Latin and to 'h' in Greek, (while remaining the same in Slavic languages)?
.

Quantcast