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

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

> Grzegorz:
> > The discussion here is about *ka, *k^a etc. in PIE.
> > But who said they were really present?
>
> Linguists. I can't conceive of an attested vowel
> system without a low vowel /a/. Can you? Ergo, *a
> is there without a doubt in IE, even if it's rare.
>
>
> > Please consult the Lubotsky's article "Against a
> > Proto-Indo-European phoneme *a", [...]
>
> He's right about these instances of *a, yes, but
> I think he might be going too far in some cases
> like *was-. I don't think it truly was **wHs- at
> the very last stage of IE. Vocalization of laryngeals
> in these positions would have occured early on.

The problem with *wástu is that it does not appear to have a
laryngeal at all. Descriptively, it is a word with only zero-grade
syllables, a near-impossibility in IE. I conclude that it is a
loanword.

> However, I do love how we admits that *sal- "salt"
> is in reality an l-stem *seh2-l-. Hello! What have
> I been saying all along?? So, now it's only a
> matter of time before people see that the *-l-
> suffix is an old partitive marker.

How many other l-stems are there?

> > *g^heH2n-s- ~ *g^hH2n-s- for goose.
>
> It's also possible, especially if the vocalization
> of some of these laryngeals occured early that
> there would be a few common stems with an
> alternation of accented *eh2 and unaccented *a...
> So for example, nominative *neh2s "nose" but
> genitive *nasós "of the nose". Afterall, IE
> phonotactics tell us that there would be an initial
> syllable nasal in the genitive if it were *nh2sos
> and it would be expressed as **n.h2sos instead!

Is it possible that Greek _ne:sos_, as in _Peloponne:sos_
lit. 'Pelops' island', is from IE *nexs-? I brought this up before,
but no one answered it.

> So... *a is needed.

I, for one, never said otherwise. :)

- Rob