[tied] Re: Unreality...

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, enlil@... wrote:

> The heart of the debate:
> > In terms of the commutation test /kWis/ and /kWys/ are

equivalent,

> > as are /ios/ and /yos/ for [yos]. Thus far, this language does

not

> > show a phonemic opposition between /i/ and /y/. Therefore, one of
> > them is dispensable. If that is acceptable for Sanskrit, it is
> > acceptable for Indo-European; and if it is unacceptable for

Sanskrit

> > it is unacceptable for Indo-European.
>
> Of course, however... /i/, /o/, /u/ and /e/ can all be replaced

with

> /y/, /aw/, /w/ and /ay/ in Sanskrit. In other words, all these
> vowels can be replaced with other already-existing elements that

don't

> contrast with the phonemes in question.

Exactly. We've come that far now.

> That rule being exposed, what do we replace *o with if it is a

function

> of *e? It can't be *e: because that already exists and a clear
> distinction exists between *e: and *o already. It can't be *e and

some

> imaginary consonant *Q because this is desperate pleading and we

aren't

> using preexisting elements of the language. We're instead inventing
> our own conlang.
>
> So it doesn't seem any further analysis is truly possible like it

is

> with Sanskrit. I don't get this game. What are the rules, if any,

to

> play?

We do not replace *o by anything. In the stages of the history of IE
that have *e and *o, the two are distinct phonemes. It's for the
stages preceding the emergence of *o out of *e that we posit the
same for both. The rules that change *e into *o comprise: reduction
of unaccented *e to *o; change of stem-final *e to *o before
[+voice]; later, contraction of [e.o] (the product of
lengthened /e:/) yielding PIE /o:/. Before the working of the ablaut
there was dissimilation of (certain types of) reduplicated verbal
stems changing e-e into e-o, which with the ablaut gave an
alternation -ó-/zero in the root. The clear distinction between /e:/
and /o/ is maintained and respected in all of this.

Some cases of -o- are in fact, under my theory, from an imaginary
morphophoneme -O- (consonantal o, in my view earlier an R-like
consonant) as I have explained at great length in many places. When
you say no, and the material tells me otherwise, frankly, I go with
the latter. There is no necessity that all earlier stages of IE had
the same phonemes as PIE itself (or less). Many languages have lost
phonemes; you just said that about Sanskrit. Now, retrieval is the
art here. Saussure retrieved lost phonemes basing himself on
remaining alternations; I do exactly the same. How can that be
horrible?

So you don't get it? Tant pis.

Jens