Re: [tied] Exampaeus

Message

However, if Steppe Iranian *a became a fairly close vowel in metrically weak positions (elsewhere I argued that it was substituted with Slavic *U rather than *o in loanwords), Greek /o/ makes sense as the best approximation.

Piotr

----- Original Message -----
From: Sergejus Tarasovas

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Saturday, January 12, 2002 1:33 PM

Subject: RE: [tied] Exampaeus

-----Original Message-----
From: Piotr Gasiorowski [mailto:gpiotr@...]
Sent: Saturday, January 12, 2002 12:11 AM
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [tied] Exampaeus

> I am sure that many an Iranian *a is represented as <o> in Greek orthography (in more-or-less predictable positions), so why not <e> in some cases?

The phonetic quality of the 5th c. BC Attic-Ionian /o/ is usually reconstructed as [o] or [o.] (short _close-mid_ o). The question is, what phoneme of their native tongue the Greeks would find more suitable for rendering, say, Iranian [back open (OK, even labialized) a], <o> or <a>? Close u-flavoured <o> is not the best solution, IMO. In case of Iranian short back <a>, long open-mid /O:/ would be a better choice as to vowel quality, but I don't know how conscientiously the Greeks tried to render Iranic vowel quantity. If it mattered, <O:> is unlikely as well. Plain <a> is still the best fit.

Sergei