Re: [tied] Re: Schleicher's Tale

From: Richard Wordingham
Message: 24874
Date: 2003-07-28

I apologise if Miguel's already replied.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Rob" <magwich78@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, July 28, 2003 7:24 AM
Subject: [tied] Re: Schleicher's Tale


> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:
> > On Mon, 28 Jul 2003 01:08:47 +0000, Rob <magwich78@...> wrote:
> >
> > Not so difficult as to back and round a back rounded vowel :-)
>
> LOL, perhaps not. :) I thought I had read somewhere that it is more
> difficult to back and/or round a front unrounded vowel than vice-
> versa.

It's unlikely that PIE *e was [e] when the rounding took place. A partial
parallel is the low back rounded vowel in British English 'wasp' (not all
dialects - East Anglian has the same vowel as 'grass', and dialects that
rhyme 'water' with 'natter' will have the same vowel in 'wasp').

> Question: initial /a/ and /o/ in PIE daughter-languages (i.e., Latin
> and Greek) are always caused by initial laryngeals in the parent
> language, correct?

Initial /o/ can arise by ordinary ablaut. I'll leave *a to Miguel - he's a
collection of PIE *a he does _not_ attribute to PIE *h2.

Richard.