Miguel:
>So you're saying that *q arose from **k in the neighbourhood of **a.
Yes, this started in IndoTyrrhenian.
>Wouldn't it be simpler to take *q as basic
No. It requires an extra phoneme we don't need. That's wasteful.
Working back to Mid IE, *q always seems to be next to *a. We
don't see *q in *kwon- for example because *kwon- derives from
*kewane, explaining both the accent (having lost the final vowel
in the penultimate accent stage) and the quality of the initial
stop (which is next to unaccented schwa, written as *e, which is
the only vowel permissable in unaccented position). Unaccented
schwa sometimes survives, as I've said, in cases of Paradigmatic
Strengthening, hence the classic example *pedos < *pet:ase "of
the foot". We never see *o in the unaccented weak forms of
such alternations, emphasizing my Mid IE Vocalic Restriction rule.
The *q found in Eskimo-Aleut has little to do with what's
found in IE and we can't expect a simple and direct sound
correspondance between two languages seperated by at least
5000 years! You will find that EA *q sometimes corresponds to
IE *kW or that IE *q sometimes corresponds with EA *k.
>After all, how do [you] get an *a or an *o in, to give only the first two
>examples that come to mind, the suffix *-iq-, or
>the word *qrewh2- "blood / raw meat"?
I'm not sure in which context *-iq- is found. It looks like a
composite suffix. Examples?
The word *qreux- appears to be a deverbal noun, composed
of a stem *qreu- and *-x- (transitive). The stem *qreu- can be
further broken down as an extension of a verb *qar-/*qor-
which should be derived from Mid IE *kar-. Originally when
this root alternated during ablaut, *q alternated with *k.
However, the root eventually sided with *q in all forms
because its default form was with *[q] (since it was in
the a-grade). Likewise, stems where the default form was in
the e-grade developped *k throughout its paradigm, rather
than *q. So *kwon- represents how a consonant cluster
normally develops because it was created when *q still
alternated with *k, which is why we seldom ever see *q
in a consonant cluster.
= gLeN
_________________________________________________________________
MSN 8 helps eliminate e-mail viruses. Get 2 months FREE*.
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus