Re: [tied] IE vowels

On Thu, 05 Jun 2003 13:54:36 +0000, Jens Elmegård Rasmussen
<jer@...> wrote:

>A proposal: Reconstructed PIE /e/ was phonetically earlier [a] (of
>unknown phonetic range, but basically something we can call /a/ in
>good faith). That stage, however, is not the protolanguage yet.
>
>Foreign words containing a special low variety of /a/ were adopted,
>putting the unconditioned realization of native /a/ under pressure.
>The a-elements do not all have to be foreign, there may also be
>soundchanges pertaining to special native combinations we cannot
>unravel. Ignorance is an important factor, and there must be *some*
>ignorance since research still goes on.

But what need is there for "foreign words with a special low variety of
/a/"? Is there an example of such a thing (i.e. a language shifting its
most basic vowel phoneme due to a borrowed phoneme)?

The solution I advocate not only explains why /a/ eventually became /e/,
but also what happened to basic /i/ and /u/. The process is one of
centralization, *a *i *u becoming *& (*y&, *w&) and *a:, *i: and *u:
becoming *a:, *(y)e:, *(w)o:.


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