[tied] Re: Indo-European /a/

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:

>
> As an alternative, one might consider the possibility that early *a

was

> relegated to the peripheries of the system since it did not

participate

> in productive vowel alternations and so had no grammatical function

to

> play. This is more or less Kurylowicz's position: he points out that

*a

> occurs mostly in isolated "concrete" lexemes.

Could you explain the nature of such a process?

Jens