Metathesis

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Fri Mar 15 06:33:10 EST 2002


At 10:55 PM -0500 3/14/02, Randy Leedy  wrote:
>What are you doing up so late, Carl?
>
>I guess I didn't make my question quite clear enough. Or else you're
>too tired and should go to bed and try again in the morning. :-)

I had just come in from traditional Appalachian music concert and checked
my mail before turning off the computer. I guess you weren't really clear
enough, but if you'd been/are able to follow the Smyth refs. you would
have/will find what you're looking for--especially since I've corrected
some errors in a couple of them as I copied them last night.

>I'm not looking for examples where the development of particular word
>forms has included a metathesis somewhere along the way. I'm looking
>for words that synchronically exist in two different forms, where the
>difference between the two involves a transposition of letters. A
>theoretical example, since I used a Hebrew word for "sheep," would be
>if PROBATON had a variant spelling PROTABON.
>
>Do you know any such? I'll try to take a look at Smyth tomorrow; at
>the moment I've got to crank out some grading and get to bed.

Gee, I'm glad I don't have to do that any more!

>There are other types of consonantal and vocalic metathesis too; see
>Smyth,
>##128, 492, 549, 559d, 586f.

#128: PNUX (where Athenian EKKLHSIA met), gen. PUKNOS
#492 verbal stems: pres. QNHiSKW, aor. EQANON; pres. BALLW, pf. BEBLHKA;
pres. TEMNW, pf. TETMHKA; pres. DERKOMAI, aor. EDRAKON; pres. TERPW, aor.
forms ETARPON and ETRAPON.
-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
Most months:: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu OR cwconrad at ioa.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/



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