Re: Monovocalism: sequel

> By "root vowels" I mean lexically given vowels of roots, not their
> variants conditioned by phonology or morphology. It just so happens
> that the overwhelming majority of IE roots display the
> vocalism //e//. By "short e" is here meant a vowel that turns up as
> short e in PIE if not changed by a rule before that stage, a
> statement that should be read without prejudice of a higher degree
> of phonetic accuracy than is attainable at this stage.
>
> The monotonous picture of //e// does not exhaust the material
> completely, but other vocalisms are so rare that an explanation is
> needed. Some may just be phenotypes of underlying //e// after all
> and so only illusory, some perhaps even according to rules we do

not

> know yet. But if there is a residue of true a-roots (and perhaps
> also o-roots), the easiest explanation is that they have entered

the

> language after an event of merger of what used to be a more varied
> vocalism into a single /e/ (or its prestage).

Hypothetical example: what is the "true vowel" of a Semitic root? The
question is meaningless since Semitic ablauts. Now why do we say that
that majority of verbs in IE have /e/ as stem vowel, when it can only
be derived for the present stem (etc)? Should we rather say: it seems
PIE ablauted?
That's why personally I prefer to use Møller's notation *C-C- (etc.)
for standard *CeC-. Or I should be loyal to the proposal I once made
and write -A- for "the ablaut vowel" (which is different
from "real /a/", which mostly entered the language in loans), thus
*CAC-.

Torsten