Re: [tied] Re: Nominative: A hybrid view

On Tue, 3 Jun 2003, Glen Gordon wrote:

> Jens:
> >I do believe I understand them, I just don't think the analysis is
> >correct. It is hard to specify the underlying vowel of *H3re:g^-s since
> >it never alternates
>
> Sorry, I forgot the *h3-. I'm so used to the old reconstruction of
> *reg- that my mind keeps omitting it. At any rate, *hWreg- doesn't
> need to alternate. We see that *pod- does alternate with *ped-
> as a direct result of accent changes within the paradigm.
>
> Now that fact would almost seem to suggest that *e and *o
> alternate as one vowel, however since we can't claim that *e in
> *hWreg- is the result of accent (since it would have to be
> _unaccented_ in *hWre:gs to comply with the pattern seen with
> *pedos), we are forced to conclude that there _is_ an important
> and undismissable contrast in IE between *e and *o. We must
> conclude that simple C(C)VC- roots themselves can contain BOTH
> *e and *o. Therefore *e and *o are distinct and neither IE, nor its
> immediate ancestor, are monovocalic.
>
> There are of course also *o-presents alongside *e-presents that
> can't be explained by assuming that the two vowels are the
> same!
>
> We can chit-chat about "what if, what if, what if" all we want but
> these are the present facts that suggest that there is a distinction
> until further evidence (not "what-if" scenarios) can contradict this.

No, those are not the facts. Information which we have for 'foot' is
missing for 'king'. As verbal roots, their radical elements are *ped- 'go,
fall' (if the two meanings belong to the same root which may be doubted)
and *H3reg^- respectively. The root noun 'foot' is based on a
lengthened-grade root form *pe:d-, and the root present of 'govern' has
lengthened grade in Skt. ra:j- (3sg ra:s.t.i), so it is hard to see, let
alone prove, a fundamental difference in their vowels.

I do not know what you mean when you say "o-present". The forms I know
that could be called that are IE intensives which have been reduplicated.
In this *all* roots behave the same, and radical -e- is replaced by -o- in
the strong forms, the same as it is in th perfect and the full-grade type
reduplicated aorist. Also the funny -o- of the causative treats all roots
the same. These are not properties ascribable to the root vowels, but must
belong elsewhere in the description and the analysis of the language. They
are still facts, they are still vowels, and they are not -e-. But this is
not Sanskrit.

Jens