Re: Diphthong Distributions

From: tgpedersen
Message: 46284
Date: 2006-10-05

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "etherman23" <etherman23@...> wrote:
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "etherman23" <etherman23@> wrote:
> >
> > That has o-vocalism which I've excluded from my analysis. However,
> > distribution of those diphthongs may also prove interesting (some
> > cases could perhaps be explained by the presence of H3 which could
> > conceivably prevent the dissimilation).
>
> So this is what I've found for diphthongs in *o (I'm ignoring all
> long diphthongs whether in *e or *o because they'd have a laryngeal
> explanation, and I'm ignoring those in *a). They're extremely rare.
> I didn't see any distributional patterns. Most consonants are not
> followed by any o-diphthong. Counterexamples are few and far
> between. Presumably those few that do exist come from *H3ei and
> *H3eu preceeded by a consonant. That's not certain though. If *H3
> voices preceeding consonants than there are some that can't be
> explain with a laryngeal.
> On the flip side o-grades of e-diphthongs would be common.


That's just an artefact of the classical analysis of ablaut as
e, o, zero
ei, oi, i
eu, ou, u
and the consequent decision to quote all roots in the e-grade form.
It means that if you find some diphthong with o-grade there,
something is seriously wrong with it, either inflection has obscured
the root vowel, or it's a loan.


Torsten