Re: [tied] Qualitative ablaut - Oy veh, could the case be more clos

On Mon, 04 Dec 2000 09:30:14 , "Glen Gordon"
<glengordon01@...> wrote:

[mcv:]

>>So then I asked you for *your* examples of *e -> *o due to lack of >stress
>>(the canonical examples being <poimé:n> and <dáimo:n>, where >we indeed
>>have stressed -mén- vs. unstressed -mon-, but that's >"classical" *e, not
>>your schwa).
>
>You're not talking about IE anymore.

Yes I am. About PIE, even.

>>Well, something along those lines would seem to be the answer. There
>>are of course a lot of details to be filled in. For instance,
>>Rasmussen has proposed that the static inflections can be explained >by an
>>initial long vowel (HD **CV:CV'R(V)-, **CV:CVRV's(V)), which
>>attracted the accent after the working of zero grade and the
>>shortening of unstressed long vowels (**CéCR, **CéCRs).
>
>That sounds really lame to me, if I may be so blunt. Why on earth would a
>long vowel "attract" the accent.

Because of an initial accent rule. See "Zur Morphophonemik des
Urindogermanischen", 1978, or "Studies in the morphophonemics of the
Indo-European protolanguage" (1990).

>Seems like my solution is more Occam-compatible.

Except it doesn't address the static inflections.

>>An interesting argument from G & I: as is known, PIE does not allow
>>roots of the shape TET, DHEDH, PEP, BHEBH etc. [...]
>
>Look, if I recall, G&I are the crackpots that posit an Armenian homeland for
>IE. That in itself says it all about their quality of research which might
>almost smell of sensationalistic marketing if I didn't know better. I've
>never trusted them. Do you swallow their looney reconstructions for "monkey"
>or the kooky impossible IE phonemes like *s^ or *q too? I dare not ask this
>question. Sorry, I've just stabbed my ears with some cotton swabs and won't
>be hearing the nonsense you're telling me.

So how about *kek^?

>>I think you're seriously confused. The law of the palatals (if >that's
>>what you mean) has nothing to do with the question at hand.
>
>Yes, they do indeed, but you're probably to busy reading G&I to notice.

So how about your new take on the law of the palatals?

>>*Lack* of stress. **wa:dn -> **wodr, *wa:dná:s -> *wednós. For the
>>first couple of centuries, read the *o as in Sanskrit, always long.
>>
>>Then all *o's (there being no short *o) became phonologically short.
>>In Indo-Iranian, in open vowels, they remained phonetically long long
>>enough to merge with the new laryngeal and vrddhi long vowels. >That's
>>Brugmann's law explained.
>
>Which "first couple of centuries"???... Both long AND SHORT *o _DO EXIST_ in
>IE (without a doubt, most definitely)...

Yes, and also in PIE. But I was talking about pre-PIE.

>You
>obviously need to get acquainted with how *wlkWos is declined because you
>must not be aware that the gen.pl. is *wlkWo:m while the acc.sg. is *wlkWom,
>bluntly showing the important contrast between *o and *o:!

At the time I was discussing, those would have been [wlkwo:m] and
[wlkwo:h1o:m] (hiatus, in any case).

>>>>That in any case. E.g. Slavic c^asU < *ke:s-.
>>>
>>>You forgot the palatal diacritic. I'm sure you mean *k^e:s-.
>>
>>Tsk, tsk.
>
>Hey, are you tsking me? I wouldn't tsk. This is not your moment of tsk,
>here.

I was merely expressing my disbelief that you hadn't bothered to check
even the most elementary handbook ("PIE for Dummies") before writing
that.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...