From: Sergejus Tarasovas
Message: 22477
Date: 2003-06-02
>Skt. a < PIE *e palatalizes velars (<cakra-> < *kWekWlo-), while a < *o
> Thanks. Did you see what Jens said regarding Sanskrit and
> monovocality? Although Sanskrit is not a monovocalic language, it
> has /a/ where PIE has /e/, /o/, or /a/. This raises two
> possibilities:
>
> 1. Sanskrit levelled all prior e/o (Ablaut) alternations.
>
> 2. Sanskrit's immediate ancestor and its relatives (presumably, the
> entire Indo-Aryan group) broke off from PIE before the Ablaut
> occurred.
>
> Choice #2 seems controversial, but there is evidence for it besides
> what's mentioned above. Sanskrit has PIE /ei/, /oi/, /ai/ > /e/,
> and /eu/, /ou/, /au/ > /o/. It seems more logical to me that
> Sanskrit's ancestor(s) broke off of PIE before Ablaut, and thus never
> had /ei/, /oi/, /eu/, or /ou/, but simply /ai/ and /au/, which can
> easily turn into /e/ and /o/, respectively.
>