> What on earth is
> wrong with the IE vowel system? Everything is as it should be as long
> as we accept *a as seperate from *e and *o,
One of its oddities is the places where the vowels are typically found:
/i/ & /u/ almost entirely as vocalic versions of /y/ & /w/,
occurring with and without the ablauting vowels *e/o
/e/ & /o/ almost entirely as the ablauting vowels; (secondary *o
from eH3)
/a/ outside the ablaut system, never with the ablauting vowels, not a
vocalic version of anything. (secondary *a from eH2)
Is this entirely normal??? Even if we accept typologically normal vowel
patterns /a i u/ and /a i u o e/ for PIE, is there any other known language
where this sort of restriction occurs?
Peter