Re: Albanian (1)

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Mate Kapovic" <mkapovic@...>
wrote:

>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Miguel Carrasquer" <mcv@...>
> To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Saturday, January 24, 2004 3:02 AM
> Subject: Re: [tied] Re: Albanian (1)
>
>
> > The frequency numbers for Proto-Uralic[*] are:
> >
> > u 28
> > o 22
> > a 17
> > e 15
> > I 14
> > i 10
> > ü 9
> > ä 8
> >
> > I don't know where you propose to count the hard vowel /I/, but

in any

> > case, the whole thing yields far too many *kW's. If we count

hard vs.

> > soft, hard vocalism wins by a considerable margin.
>
> OK. This weakens my Indo-Uralic theory :-) but as I said, I mainly

took it

> as an example of a possible vocalic system which would cause later

this kind

> of frequencyof *k, *kw and *k's. I am sure you will agree that it

is

> possible that there was a system in which 4 front vowels had higher
> frequency together than back ones. Maybe to see the frequency of

some Turkic

> language for this. I just want to state that this kind of scenario

is not

> *impossible* at all.

The ratios aren't so bad if the colouring distinctions are
{u} ~ {o, a} ~ the rest. kI > ki has precedent (e.g. Russian), and
merger of /a/ and /o/ is common enough. What etymologies would such
a merger upset?

Richard.