--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Brophey" <TBrophey@...> wrote:
> To begin with: Thank you, Jens, for your detailed explanations. I
> respect your scholarship and deeply appreciate your taking time to
> explain to me. It always was (and is) with trepidation that dare
to
> I question you.
Hey, I only demand equal rights! My opinions are as much open to
debate as those of others, especially perhaps if you have the
impression that I am capable of justifying them. So just fire away.
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "elmeras2000" <jer@...> wrote:
> > I do not mean *eH3 (I refuse to write "a" for a vowel we know
only
> > as /e/) > *&3H3, but rather *H3&3.
> >
> So you are saying in PIE, zero-grade: *eH3 > *H3&3, unchanged in I-
I.
> The reason I wrote *aH3 was that I began with full-grade.
> PIE to I-I: *eH3 > *aH3 by normal I-I sound shifts.
> Then zero-grade in I-I: *aH3 > *&3H3 (or as you say *H3&3).
> Are you saying then that the zero-grade reduction could not have
> proceeded anew in I-I from full-grade?
Yes, I am indeed saying that. It would have the effect of nullifying
the greater part of all the etymologes that make up the backbone of
IE comparative linguistics.
> I wonder, however, if you might entertain an alternative
formulation
> of the hypothesis:
> Instead of three laryngeals which colored one vowel to three
vowels,
> may there have been initially three vowels which colored one
> laryngeal to three laryngeals?
> *eH, *aH, *oH > *eH1, *aH2, *oH3 and
> *He, *Ha, *Ho > *H1e, *H2a, *H3o.
The second line of this is actually identical with the Moscow
Nostratic doctrine. Illich-Svitych imagined a single laryngeal
(which had come about by merger, but that's another issue) which, in
a scenario just like that of the velars, was split up in three
variants, palatal, neutral and rounded, i.e. [H1e/i], [H2a], [H3o/u]
> IE /H1e/, /H2e/, /H3e/ (before coloration), just like [k^e/i],
[ka], [kWo/u] > /k^e/, /ke/, /kWe/, etc. I used to like that very
much, but it is not without its problems. Especially how does this
produce three different laryngeal and velar phonemes before
consonants? We cannot just circularly write in the ghost-vowels we
need to make it work. My main objection - apart from the
arbitrariness of the choice - is that the IE inflectional accent
moves from its given position to the next vowel whenever a flexive
containing an underlying full vowel is added, and in that process it
NEVER moves from one position inside a root to another position
inside the root. There is no paradigmatic ablaut between, say, *térp-
and *trép-, not in a single example has anything of the sort been
established or made even remotely probable. That can only mean that
there were no hidden vowels in the roots and that all roots were
underlyingly monosyllabic before anything we call ablaut began to
operate. Then of course we cannot all of a sudden open up for
explanation of later developments in the individual branches on a
putative basis of retained extra vowels which PIE cannot have had.
That just cannot be an option. So, this is not about hidden vowels,
it's about the original consonants. It could theoretically have been
either or, or both with some distribution, but it turns out it is
this way. And why not accept that? What's the point in belittling
progress where it *has* been made?
> This gives the three laryngeals which you find necessary. Since
they
> are already associated with the three vowels, it might not be
> necessary to assume they have coloring properties.
>
> > The "pre-Nostratic" chopped liver he makes
> > out of IE words is the worst kind of pseudoscholarship by fiat I
> > have ever seen in this field.
> >
> I certainly agree that his Nostratic derivations are unconvincing.
> But might one not take the resulting PIE word as input from which
> the attested forms could have derived?
That depends on what you mean by "the resulting PIE word". We cannot
just accept anybody's fancy ideas of what a PIE word was like as a
valid input. There are many misonceptions going around, and some are
just too crazy to deserve any amount of serious attention.
Jens