Re: PIE & Sanskrit Vowel Counts (was: Nominative: A hybrid view)

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:

> On Thu, 05 Jun 2003 11:05:14 +0000, Glen Gordon <glengordon01@...>
> wrote:
>
> >>This leaves:
> >>
> >>stressed *&' (*^&', *"&') *á: *^é: *"ó: (*-í *-ú)
> >>unstressed *& (*^&, *"&) *a
> >>svarita *a: *^e: *"o:
> >
> >Erh, why is *i and *u parenthesized?
>
> They only occurred in the Auslaut.
>
> >This is a typologically unbalanced system without them.
>
> No it isn't.
>
> e: o:
> &
> a:
>
> is perfectly alright.

Is this a Caucasian system? It doesn't seem to be in UPSID (second
hand or tertiary information only, I'm afraid), and I suspect it
ought to be labelled /a, &, i, u/.

> >>We now have:
> >>
> >>stressed *é *ó (~ *ó:) *é: (*-í, *-ú)
> >>unstressed *& *e
> >>svarita *e *o
> >
> >Well, the parenthesized *i and *u irked me in the previous
> >"stage" of yours but now the lack of *a makes me down
> >right mad. This most definitely _is_ a typologically imaginary
> >vowel system and automatically makes your theory
> >unremediably suspect.

Not unremediably. The stressed system could be labelled /a, i, u/ (
= <e, e:, o>).

> I didn't include PIE *a in my summary, which was an omission.
> At the stage above, we also had the marginal phoneme *á/*a in the
> neighbourhood of *k, *g, *gh, *h2 (a variant of *&/*é), and *á~: ~

*á~ in

> the neighbourhood of nasals (a variant of *ó(:)).

Phoneme or allophone?

> Still, there is no denying that *a was extremely rare in PIE, a

fact that

> needs to be explained. My explanation, as given here, is a

development **a

> > **& > *e.
>
> >>stressed *é *ó *é: *ó: *í *ú
> >>unstressed *e *o: *e: *i *u
> >>svarita *e *o *e: *o:
> >
> >Ugh, it's still without *a! What does Miguel call this crazy
> >conlang?

This system can be rebadged: /a, e, i, o, u/ = <e, e:, i, o, u>, but
the system is ripe for re-organisation of the allophones.

> PIE. Again, I *do* recognize a PIE *a, but only as a marginal

phoneme,

> outside of the main developments.

And the re-organisation can constitute PIE */a/ out of odds and sods.

I suspect that improving phonological plausibility will make each
step more plausible at the cost of obscuring the overall development.

Richard.