Re: ka and k^a [was: [tied] *kW- "?"]

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, glen gordon <glengordon01@...> wrote:

> Rob:
> > I am inclined to take all words with apparently
> > non-alternating /a/ to be loanwords borrowed after
> > IE had (re-)phonemicized /a/.
>
> Unnecessary hypothesis. There is nothing a priori
> "foreign" about *a. You can't have a vowel system
> without it!

But no one claimed the foreignness of PIE *a was a priori. It's a
contingent fact, derived from the absence of native PIE *a (other than
in the context -ka-, -h2a- etc) after pre-PIE *a -> {/e/, /o/, zero}.
And apart from loans and a few native words, English has a vowel system
without it.


Torsten