Re: [tied] PIE Stop System

On Thu, 18 Sep 2003 23:27:31 +0200, Mate Kapovic <mkapovic@...> wrote:

>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Miguel Carrasquer" <mcv@...>
>To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
>Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2003 9:55 PM
>Subject: Re: [tied] PIE Stop System
>
>
>> What that shows is that *k^ should have been as frequent as *kW. It
>isn't:
>> it's much more frequent.
>
>But why? We don't now the situation in that pre-PIE? There could have been
>three front vowels which caused *k' as I said (*e, *i, *ü) and maybe just *u
>caused *kw. In Uralic, if I'm not mistaking, *e, *i, *ü and *ä (a with
>Umlaut) are reconstructed. If IE can really be linked with some other group
>than it's probably Uralic and it has 4 front vowels which, if Uralic is
>conservative vowelwards, could account for the frequency of PIE *k'.

The Uralic evidence cannot account for that. I count 122 Proto-Uralic
etymologies in Sammallahti's list (in Sinor '88), with frequency in the
first syllable approximately as follows:

1. u 27
2. o 21
3. a 17
4. I 15

5. e 13
6. ä 11
7. i 9
ü 9

_All_ the back vowels are more frequent than the front vowels.

There are only four second-syllable vowels in Proto-Uralic, and the pattern
is of course [vowel harmony] exactly the same:

1. I 45
2. a 33
3. i 32
4. ä 13

[adds up to 123, so I've made an error somewhere]


=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...