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

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

> The system of *a, *e, *o is also very rare if attested. Lg like

this mostly

> have *a and *@ (two vowels) or *a, *i, *u (three vowels). But

reconstructing

> *a is not the only way out as you probably know.

We sure do. An easier solution is *a, *e, *o, *i, *u, which is quite
common. For a system to be "natural" it is immaterial whether its
elements have phonemic status. We have been over this long ago in
this forum.

Jens