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

Peter:

>>> My point was more that PIE /a/ seems to have a different function both
>>> from /i,u/ and from /e,o/.
>> What "different function"?
>
> /a/ just is. Whereas /e~o~zero/ correlates with certain grammatical forms
> (eg /o/ in causatives, nouns).

And why do you feel that there was no /a~o~zero/?

> (b) an ablauting vowel with one of two different forms, if present: /e ~
> o ~ zero/
> (c) /a/.

It seems like your entire basis for seperating *e and *o on the one hand
and *a on the other is because of an assumption that *a doesn't partake in
ablaut. Unless you can be sure of that, I'm not sure how you can justify
making *a as "special" as you make it out to be.


= gLeN