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From: matt@brl-tgr.ARPA (Matthew Rosenblatt )
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Double 'R'
Message-ID: <2176@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 16-Oct-85 08:51:52 EDT
Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.2176
Posted: Wed Oct 16 08:51:52 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 18-Oct-85 20:44:31 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab
Lines: 32

Edward Delavan Perry writes, in "A Sanskrit Primer":

	"A double R is nowhere admitted:  if such would occur,
either by retention of an original R or by conversion of S to R,
the first R is omitted, and the preceding vowel, if short, is
made long by compensation . . ."  (p. 34)

J. Weingreen writes, in "A Practical Grammar for Classical Hebrew":

	"When Daghes Forte appears in a letter it shows that, for
some reason, that letter is doubled . . . The gutturals, being
throat-letters, cannot be doubled in pronunciation, nor can R, so
that Daghes Forte cannot apply to these five letters.  (p. 15)
 . . .
"NOTE:  When the letter to be doubled is a guttural or R then, since
these cannot be doubled (i.e., receive Daghes Forte), the preceding
vowel is lengthened."  (p. 17)


Is there some sort of universal linguistic principle at work here?
How come these two completely different languages both ban a
double R, and handle such a situation in the same way, viz., 
lengthening the preceding vowel?

And if there is such a principle, how come it doesn't apply to
Spanish, with its "perros" and "arroyos"?   Is it because the
R in Spanish is not a "throat-letter," as in Hebrew?  And if so,
does that mean that the Sanskrit R was a "throat-letter"?   (I 
am leaving out languages like English and French, which write
a double R but pronounce it as a single R)

					-- Matt Rosenblatt