[tied] Re: Monovocalism: sequel

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, enlil@... wrote:

> Torsten:
> > Hypothetical example: what is the "true vowel" of a Semitic root?

The

> > question is meaningless since Semitic ablauts. Now why do we say

that

> > that majority of verbs in IE have /e/ as stem vowel, when it can

only

> > be derived for the present stem (etc)? Should we rather say: it

seems

> > PIE ablauted?
>
> That doesn't answer the question of what the vocalism originally was
> because every language has vowels and we still have to figure them
>out.

And by figure out you mean determine their ancestor in the previous
stage of the language. That's a recursive definition and you forgot
to add the Fibb(0) clause.

> > That's why personally I prefer to use Møller's notation *C-C-

(etc.)

> > for standard *CeC-.
>
> Yes, it can work for many languages when discussing stems whose
> vocalisms are subject to ablaut as in Semitic, IE and Kartvelian.
> There's no stopping you with IE, but the verb stems that don't

contain

> *e as expected still have to be acknowledged. I also suspect that
> Semitic, Kartvelian or any ablauting language is not without its
> irregular blips.
>
>

The -A- notation is actually better, except that in PIE the symbol is
phonological, not phonetic, as it will be for some pre-PIE. As I
said, it is reminiscent of the letter <a> in English, which stands
for several vowels and diphthongs in English, but not /a/ (except in
loans, and <father> etc, I hasten to add), although at some earlier
stage it did stand for /a/.

Torsten