Re: PIE e: > Gmc a:

> ><tgpedersen@...> wrote:
> >
> > > So that no one should say that I don't learn by my mistakes, I
> > >took the rule PIE e: > ProtoGmc a: to heart
>

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Dagfinn Hobaek"
<captain_yossarian@...> wrote:

> Well, ProtoGmc. *e: < PIE *e: (ProtoGmc. *e:1 as opposed to *e:2,

which was

> of later ProtoGmc. inflectional origin) is generally thought to

have become

> *[æ:]- (that is, for those of you whose software may not have

translated it

> correctly, the ligature *[ae:]) by early ProtoGmc., which is to say

that the

> potential for the development *e:1 > *a: was already present long

before the

> breakup of the Gmc. continuum. A phoneme [æ:]([ae:]) could be

expected to

> have the potential allophonic range /e:/ - /a:/. I don't see the

need to

> consider any post-continuum influence.
>

Wondrous things, those phonetic potentials. As for 'post-continuum
influence', that is of course a contradictio in adjecto. It becomes
so by begging the question and assuming what you set out to prove,
namely that there was a continuum.

Torsten