Re: [tied] IE vowels: The sequel.

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

>
> Jens:
> > But is that more than a statistic thing? Does it really matter

that

> > much?
>
> Me:
> > In my theory, that seemingly trivial matter matters very much. []
>
> Jens:
> > Fine. Would you be so kind as to give, say, five clear examples

of it?

> > Examples, that is, of /i/ replacing the thematic vowel in

*pretonic*

> > position, as you say the rule is. Speak here.
>
> As long as you can listen patiently for once, we can get to the

bottom

> of this.
>
> All *i-reduplicated stems are examples for one thing (eg: *gi-gnehW-

,

> *bHi-bHer-, etc) but no doubt you'll say that they show initial

accent,

> ignoring the big tip-off that the accent isn't original here because
> it's fixed on the first syllable in stark contrast to athematic
> stems which show accent alternation. It should be obvious that this

is

> caused by Acrostatic Regularization, a rule that affects all

thematic

> stems of that period while athematic stems like *kwon- being

unaffected

> show the original wonky accent pattern. The whole reason for accent
> regularization here and in the other thematic stems is in order to
> avoid multiple accent positions on a single stem. If a stem must

have

> an accented syllable, Acrostatic Regularization guaranteed that it

fall

> on one select syllable only, so the initial syllable was chosen for
> all case forms.
>

Isn't it easier to do it in to steps: at first thematic stems
accented the thematic vowel throughout the paradigm (thereby
destroying all information in the paradigm of any shifting accent),
then the accent was moved, uniformly accross the paradigm, since
there was no way to reconstruct the original irregularity?

Torsten