[tied] Re: Ducks and Souls

>
> These are Schriijver's examples:
> *mesVl-, *a-m(V)sl- "blackbird"
> *la&waD-, *a-lawD- "lark"
> *raud-, *a-ru/id- "ore"
> *teroP, *a-str(a)P- "lightning, sulphur"
> "
> Most importantly, it had a prefix a-, which was probably stressed

and

> accompanied by syncope of vowels in the rest of the word;...
> "
> But I suppose you could fix them all by adding a *h2- in front of

it.

>
>

Have I understood Jens, I think it was, correctly that PIE at a
certain time had only /e/ and /o/ for vowels and that words with /a/
are "younger", ie. onomatopoeic or borrowed?

If so, that would be a pointer that the words of Schrijver's bird
language were borrowed. And since a second diagnostic seems to be i/u
variation in the first 'non-a' syllable, *akus-/*akis- "axe" might go
there too. But having "copper, ore" and *pel-akus- "two-axe"

> "double axe" in the same batch of borrowings won't bother me. The

birds will, though. But perhaps the Kurgan peoples met those birds
during their expansion (remember Latin 'alauda' is a Gallic loan
word) and the pattern in the "bird language" words is not indicative
of the phonological structure of the donor language, but of the
borrowing process.

Torsten