Peter:
>Not at all unfair, [...] We were already
>saying "are other known languages like this?"
Yes, we were. However, I'm taking this question
to imply "Are there other known languages that
operate with similar ablaut rules as IE that
show the same distribution of vowels as IE?"
Well obviously we can't expect there to be
a language like IE. As we've already gone over,
we know there are languages that have similar
vowel systems (as long as we accept that
unconditioned *a does occur in IE). So, in
that sense, IE is within normal parameters.
I'm not sure what can be said about what we
can expect for the frequencies of each vowel
within such a system. Obviously the use of *e
and *o is much more common than *a for the
simple fact that it is these two vowels that
are employed foremost in ablaut patterns.
How can one fully quantify the frequency of
vowels based on these unique morphological
processes? Typology can't be of much use
here. Perhaps it would be better to consider
only the frequencies of vowels in the default
forms of stems. So, for example, we'd take
*pod- as an instance of *o (ignoring the
ablaut alternation with *ped-) and we'd take
*mag- to be an instance of *a (ignoring any
paradigmatic alternations with *mog-), etc.
We'd still of course end up with a frequency
list showing *a to be less common than any other
vowels, but this would be a less skewed view
of what you're talking about than contaminating
the issue with ablaut.
= gLeN
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