The palatal sham :) (Re: [tied] Re: Albanian (1))

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham"
<richard.wordingham@...> wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>

wrote:

> > >
> > > >[...] I think there was no real phoneme *a in PIE
> > >
> > > Think all you want. It's incorrect. Not only is the lack of *a

in

> > > a vowel system completely unattested in all known languages
> > > (at least human ones), you simply cannot wave away such a
> > > common root as *kap- "grasp, hold, have". It is far too secure

to

> > > ignore.
> >
> > English. What used to be, and still is written as <-a-> is now an
> > ablaut series |eI, ä, &|. All occurrences of proper /a/ in

English

> > are loans (eg. <spa>).
>
> And where does <father> come from?

Obsolete. Replaced by <dad>. ;-)

> In Received Pronunciation you also have such native words as <far>
> and <fast>.
>

Oops. Well, approximately.

Torsten