--- In cybalist@..., "michael_donne" <michael_donne@...> wrote:
>
> Thanks for the replies, David and Piotr!
>
> If you have any references for more background reading on this, I'd
> like to do some more homework. This is a central concept to IE and
I
> want to look into it deeply.
Piotr can give you better references. I've read "A Vedic Grammar
for Students" by Arthur A. Macdonell and "The Sanskrit Language"
by T. Burrow. I've read a few others, but these two are the best
that I've been able to get. I've seen "The Sanskrit Language" at
a few libraries so I think it should be easy to find.
> > David: Sanskrit has only long 'e' and 'o', and they're clearly
> > phonetic realizations of the diphthongs 'ai' and 'au' (or 'ay'
> > or 'av') in a closed syllable, replaced by 'ay' and 'av' in open
> > syllables.
>
> MD: I question that. In fact, I would reverse it: 'ai' and 'au' are
> considered by ancient Indians to be further along the spectrum
> than 'e' and 'o'. Westerners commonly (mis)pronounce 'e' and 'o' as
> long syllables, but most if not all Indians pronounce them short.
If by "(mis)pronounce 'e' and 'o' as long syllables" you mean
that they pronounce them as diphthongs, with the 'e' like the
diphthong in English 'they' [ey], and the 'o' like the one in
English 'know' [ow], then you're right. They should be
pronounced as pure vowels, [e] and [o], but that is not the
same as length and 'e' and 'o' were definitely long vowels in
Vedic times. We can be sure of this because the Vedas
were written in poetic meters, each based on a specific
arrangement of long and short syllables.
> Perhaps I don't understand you: could you define open and closed
> syllable?
An open syllable ends in a vowel and a closed one in a
consonant. Below are some words divided into syllables.
C = any consonant and V = any vowel. CV is an open
syllable and CVC is a closed syllable. To further clarify
on length, closed syllables are always long, and open
syllables are also long if they contain a long vowel. So
CVC(C), CV: and CV:C(C) are all long syllables,
and only CV (with a short vowel) is short.
na-ya-ti (CV-CV-CV) 'he leads, guides'
*nay-tram (CVC-CCVC) > netram 'eye'
*nay-tr- (CVC-CV) > netr 'leader'
sra-va-ti (CV-CV-CV) 'it flows'
*srav-tas (CCVC-CVC) > srotas 'the current or bed of a river'
Notice how 'y' and 'v' are more "intimately" connected to the
'a' in closed syllables, therefore leading to their fusing into a
pure vowel. You can also see how this can't happen with the
open syllables without disturbing the metric structure of the
word. 'Sravati (CCV-CV-CV) would become *sroati
(CCV:-V-CV), which also includes a sequence of two vowels
without an intervening consonant, which Sanskrit avoids.
*Srav-tas (CCVC-CVC) and srotas (CCV:-CVC) both have
the same metric structure since CVC = CV: in terms of syllable
length.
> MD: Unfortunately, this discussion is about to crash on the rocks
of
> Phonology like so many others since I don't know Greek (although I
> can see I may have to pick it up). In order to make sure we're all
on
> the same Phonetic page can you refer to a web site and click on the
> vowels chart so see if any of these sounds are represented there?
>
http://hctv.humnet.ucla.edu/departments/linguistics/VowelsandConsonant
> s/course/chapter1/chapter1.html
That's a really neat chart! I'm glad you pointed it out. I've
been having more fun with it than a child with one of those
"the cow goes mooo" toys. As I understand it Sanskrit 'e' is
close to the spread front close-mid cardinal vowel, and 'o' to
the rounded back close-mid cardinal vowel. Long 'a' is close
to the cardinal vowel written 'a', and short 'a' is the cardinal
vowel written as an upside down 'a', the central vowel on the same
level as 'æ'.
> Also, if you go to the IPA chart and download the Hindi sounds and
> listen to 'dirt.wav' which is the Hindi word 'maila' you'll hear
how
> short this supposed 'ai' dipthong actually is.
I couldn't find the recording of 'maila', but it was my under-
standing that so-called 'ai' and 'au' in Hindi are also nowadays
pure vowels, and that 'ai' is close to the spread front open-mid
cardinal vowel, and 'au' close to the rounded back open-mid
cardinal vowel. In Vedic times these sounds really were pronounced
as diphthongs and just as 'e' alternates with 'ay' in closed
syllables, so also does 'ai' with 'a:y' in the same positions.
So you have:
*Cay-C (CVC-C) > Ce-C (CV:-C) Sk. e
*Ca:y-C (CV:CC-C) > Cay-C (CVC-C) Sk. ai
*Ca-ya- (CV-CV) > Ca-ya- (CV-CV) Sk. ay
*Ca:-ya- (CV:-CV) > Ca:-ya (CV:-CV) Sk. a:y
*Cav-C (CVC-C) > Co-C (CV:-C) Sk. o
*Ca:v-C (CV:C-C) > Cav-C (CVC-C) Sk. au
*Ca-va- (CV-CV) > Ca-va- (CV-CV) Sk. av
*Ca:-va- (CV:-CV) > Ca:-va- (CV:-CV) Sk. a:v
Note the change of a: > a in the closed syllables doesn't affect
syllable length since a closed syllable is long regardless of the
vowel. Since 'a:' and 'a' differed not only in length but also in
height (short 'a' is higher than long 'a'), the change of 'a:' >
'a' merely represents the phonetic raising of 'a:' in anticipatory
assimilation to the high semivowel following. With 'e' and 'o'
the rising 'a' finally met the lowering 'y' and 'v' until they
met in vowels midway between the two levels. In Sanskrit's
long diphthongs no more raising of the 'a:' than to the position
of short 'a' ocurred. In Hindi the 'a' reached the positions noted
above for 'ai' and 'au' and with the creation of these new distinct
vowels the trailing semivowels became unnecessary baggage just
as they did in Sanskrit 'e' and 'o', which were no doubt for a time
[ey] and [ow] before losing the semivowels.
> MD: Can you give me more information on this limitation of
Sanskrit?
> I'm not aware of it.
If you have a Sanskrit primer it will be covered under "Sandhi".
> MD: This is my main issue: I can accept this kind of "only one
vowel"
> thinking in a theoretical sense but to apply it to a language that
> clearly demonstrates a, e, o in massive amounts of historical
> documents in order to try to reconstruct something that is supposed
> to have REALLY HAPPENED in a real time and place, strikes me as
> absurd. And to make it one of the pillars of the entire PIE
> reconstruction seems very shaky to me. Theory and practice need to
be
> kept distinct.
Well, actually we are talking about what really happened.
'ay' and 'e' really are part of the same phonemic cluster.
The problem I think is that the concept of a phoneme must
really be well understood to fully understand why Sk. 'e'
and 'o' aren't parallel to Gk. 'e' and 'o', and unfortunately
I've always had a hard time explaining it well, especially if
I can't use my hands. (-: Anyway I've listed some Greek and
Sanskrit correspondences below. Maybe they will help.
Gk. Sk.
a = a
e a
o a
a: a:
e: a:
o: a:
ai e:/ay
ei e:/ay
oi e:/ay
a:i ai/a:y
e:i ai/a:y
o:i ai/a:y
au o:/av
eu o:/av
ou o:/av
a:u au/a:v
e:u au/a:v
o:u au/a:v
David