Re: [tied] Re: Gypsies again

On Sat, 01 Oct 2005 22:07:22 -0500, Patrick Ryan
<proto-language@...> wrote:

>CORRECTION AND ADDITION
>
>> The paper is interesting but has one glaring fault: the author believes
>> that introspective observation of his own sound production has some
>> evidentiary value for general linguistic principles. It does not.
>>
>> Otherwise, he makes valuable points about PIE vowel-grades.
>>
>> In all Proto-European (abstracting Proto-European from
>> Proto-Anatolo-Indo-European) languages, we have abundant evidence of a
>> phoneme which I prefer to call the Ablaut-phoneme, and indicate by *A; it
>> has the expressions in real languages of <e>, <o>, and <Ø>.
>>
>> Desperate as the attempts have been to identify it, there are _no_ traces
>> of this Ablaut-phoneme in Anatolian or Indian.

There are traces of it in both sub-groups (in the shape of
a ~ a/a: ~ 0 and e/i ~ a ~ 0, respectively).

>> Therefore, we must consider the Ablaut-phoneme strictly a Proto-European
>> phenomenon, developed _solely_ by the Proto-European languages.
>>
>> Most of us, I hope, do not doubt that an earlier stage of the language
>> which was the basis for Proto-Anatolo-Indo-European (and others) had three
>> vowels: *i, *a, and *u.
>>
>> I do not know how many list-members would agree with me (and, I presume,
>> Miguel) in reconstructing a phase, which I term Pontic (what do you call
>> it, Miguel?)

Just "pre-PIE".

>> in which earlier *i and *u became *Ya and *Wa somewhat less
>> early while *a remained unchanged (*W and *Y are glides indicating
>> respectively palatalization and velarization).

I suspect it was *Y&, *W& (with & = schwa), but otherwise, I
believe so, yes.

>> We can say that there was a reconstructable Proto-Anatolo-Indo-European
>> language through the Pontic period but after *Y palatalized dorsals and *W
>> velarized coronals, the ways parted for Proto-Anatolo-Indian and
>> Proto-European. Proto-Anatolo-Indian retained <a> (and <Ø>) while
>> Proto-European changed <a> to *A and also retained zero-grade (<Ø>).

The ablaut e ~ o ~ zero is pan-IE, so I cannot agree with
that.

e ~ 0 ablaut is easy to explain, as the PIE accent for the
most part still reflects the acting cause behind the
phenomenon: most stressed vowels become é, most unstressed
vowels are reduced to zero.

o-grade is more complicated. My current thinking is that we
find o-grade in the following circumstances:

1) "lexical" /o/, from pre-PIE stressed long vowels **a: and
**u:. The ablaut is o ~ e (if from **a:, e.g. pód-/péd-),
or o ~ zero (if from *u:, e.g. *póntH-/*pn.tH-). [**i: gives
/e:/ ~ /0/)

2) "vrddhi" /o/, from pre-PIE grammatically lengthened **a,
**u (e.g. the perfect, or the collective). [lengthened **i
gives /e:/].

3) "svarita" /o/, from pre-PIE posttonic lengthened **a, **u
after a light stressed syllable [svarita-lengthened *i gives
/e/].

4) "lengthened schwa", in the nom.sg., with
"Szemerényi-lengthening" of reduced grade **-&C-s > -o:Cs,
after a heavy stressed syllable (e.g. *pónt-o:h2-s, acc.
*pónt-h2-m < **pónt-&h2-s, **pónt-&h2-m).

5) thematic /o/: the development of the thematic vowel
before a voiced consonant (probably by lengthening).

6) "Rasmussen" or "infix" /o/, e.g. in the
causative-iterative. The ablaut is /o:/ ~ /o/ ("full-grade"
/o:/ is rare, because the environment is always a zero grade
environment: we have /o:/ where lexical **a: was reduced to
**/e/, and then (**/Oe/ > */o:/).


=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...