Re: Renfrew's theory renamed as Vasco-Caucasian

From: Patrick Ryan
Message: 50221
Date: 2007-10-07

 
----- Original Message -----
From: etherman23
Sent: Friday, October 05, 2007 11:52 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] Renfrew's theory renamed as Vasco-Caucasian

--- In cybalist@... s.com, "Patrick Ryan" <proto-language@ ...>
wrote:
> I put the following proposal to you. An early form of PIE did have the
> vowels *i and *u. However, when stressed these vowels diphthongized to
> *ei and *eu. Thus the zero grades represent the original forms. In
> this light verbal roots in *u and *i are easy to find since the
> zero-grade represents the actual vocalic structure.
>
>
> ***
>
> In the verbal form of *CVC, *V is a stress-accented *é. *CéC is
the commonest form of verbal root formation in PIE.

Indeed.

> Presumably, then, as a verbal root, *CVC should really be notated
*C'VC.

Yes.

> If we assume that *V = *i as well as *e/*o/*ø, since the commonest
(only) verbal pattern calls for *'V, we should expect **CíC not *CeiC,
which is better explained as *Cey + root extension.

My proposal is **'CiC > *'CeiC.

> Your proposal initially necessitates changing the verbal pattern
of *C'VC to *CVC(') whenever *V is *i or *u then secondarily erasing
all traces of this _verbal_ anomaly by emending *CiC(') and *CuC(') to
*CéiC and *CéuC.

There's no need to reverse stress like this. Stressed **i > *ei, and
stressed **u > *eu (possibly through an intermediate stage, stressed
***i > **ai > *ei, and sim.). This is somewhat like the Great Vowel
Shift in English.

***

Your proposal is possible, of course; one objection is, though, that several of the derived languages have <í> which has NOT changed to <éi> alongside actual <éi>.

But, I was taught that the simplest explanation that will suffice should be preferred.

I think everyone would agree that <y> can occur as both <i> and <y>.

My position is that *Céi is simply a positional variant of *Céy before consonants or finally.

Your proposal necessitates the introduction of a new process for data that can be explained without it.

 

Patrick Ryan

***