Re: Green

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "alex_lycos" <altamix@...> wrote:

> But Piotr, there is not a joke. The latin short /i/ remains an /i/

in

> Romanian.
> This abracadabra with diphtongation , triphtongation, breaking & co

is

> too complicated in comparation with
> PIE forms where some words in romanian are very simple to derive:
> *kerdh > cârd
> *ger-1 > ghearã
> *ueidh > vãduv
> *wid > uita
> *weid >vedea
> *ap-2 > apa
> *gwrendh or bhrendh> brând(uSa), and so on.
> It seems to me that is improbable that on a side you have such

archaich

> forms but on another side you need so complicated changes like from
> latin to romanian. I just learn and I want to learn. You dont need

to

> feel angry. But when I see that a short /i/ remains /i/ in Romanian
> despite the demonstration of Miguel , I must wonder about.

Alex, it takes about 200 rules to derive French from Latin, so do not
be surprised by the complexity. (And that's probably 400 rules for
the sound change applier!) Can you truly derive Romanian more simply
from PIE than from Latin? Try applying a set of rules. The
complexity of Romanian plurals guarantees that you will need a lot of
rules. Moreover, looking at your proposed derivations of cârd and
ghearã, what determines the outcome of PIE *e? Why does /g/ remain
hard in ghearã, when softening is a synchronic rule in Romanian
inflection? How consistent is your set of rules?

If you want another set of complex vowel developments, look (if
possible) at the development of Old English vowels. There you've got
breaking *and* smoothing on top of i-umlaut and a dash of u-umlaut!

Richard.