Re: PIE *a -- a preliminary checklist

On 2008-02-13 20:52, fournet.arnaud wrote:

> "less consistent"
> You said you're a die-hard orthodox.

Did I say so? I thought _you_ called me that.

> I don't buy "less" consistent colouring.
> I'm an orthodox as well.
> there is no "less" consistent.
> It must be *always* true or f*.

You've never come across a sporadic change? Neogrammarian regularity is
a useful idealisation, indispensable as a heuristic, but hardly
realistic. There are untidy "facts of life" like, for example, the
unpredictable development of Middle English /x/ after back vowels (it
was sometimes lost, lengthening the vowel, and sometimes changed into
/f/), or the a-colouring of Middle English /e/ before /r/ (we have
<star, heart, start, yard, barn>, but <earth, earnest, herd, birch>).

> No
> I definitely disagree with unnegotiable opposition.
> If you are right to posit that this root has a versus a:
> alternation, then initial is H2.

If it has a "real" *a, then it doesn't matter what the initial is,
especially as *h1 doesn't colour vowels.

> Next :
> the fact there is no <h> in Hittite proves nothing.

It may prove nothing to you, but most IEists would disagree.

> What about Kurylowicz's data :
> hapa "river" from H2ap

Right.

> apa "behing" from H2ap

Wrong. It may be (and probably is) cognate to Gk. epi-/opi-, from *h1e/op-

>> What is "zhva"? What language does it come from?
>>
>> Piotr
> =====
> Georgian
> h stands for velar voiced spirant.

And how is it connected with *sa(:)l-?

Piotr