Re: [tied] *kW- "?"

> Torsten:
>> Does your belief in PIE /a/ include its being
>> 'native' PIE? Surely, if pre-PIE /a/ -> {/e/,
>> /o/, zero}, PIE would have had a hole where /a/
>> was supposed to be (except for the environment of
>> 'plain' /k/, /h2/, etc).
>
> It _would_ have had a hole there if it weren't for
> an exception to Vowel Shift where *a normally
> becomes *o just before the final stage of IE.
> In some cases, the change is resisted. No sound
> change rule is absolute afterall.

This doesn't sound very serious. Do you honestly believe this
"explanation" is acceptable?
It's like finding an unchanged IE *o instead of _a_ in Germanic, or
unchanged *a instead of _o_ in Slavic in a couple of words, or an IE *e in
some word in Sanskrit which has miraculously survived the merger of *e and
*o into _a_... That would be very strange indeed...

Mate