Re: a

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

> But suppose pre-PIE was a three-vowel language: /i/, /a/, /u/
>
> Under certain conditions (no stress, stress, unknown),
> /a/ > nothing, /e/, /o/

<snip>

> The problem of this analysis (ie starting from the zero grade) is
> how to account for i- and u- ablaut in the other direction,
> namely /i/, /ie/, /io/ and /u/, /ue/, /uo/

It doesn't bother Germanicists. It can just be a special case of the
first rule starting from *ja and *wa, e.g. the Germanic o-stem (or is
that a-stem?) developments *-jaz > *-iz and *-waz > *-uz corresponding
to more general *-Caz > *Cz. The e- and o-grade thought experiment
developments are trivial.

Richard.