Re: [tied] Re: Monovocalism: sequel

>From: enlil@...
>
>Exu:
> > It may have been zero-graded later, but Anatolian evidence (Hittite,
> > Luwian, &c) shows it to have been a vowel when the Anatolians broke off
> > from the earliest IE band.
>
>Of course it was a vowel. You misunderstood what I was saying. Yes, *-i
>is a vowel for everyone to see. It was certainly phonetically [i].
>However, by way of analysis of IE phonetics, *i is said to be technically
>a consonant and not a true vowel. Only *e and *o (maybe *a too) are true
>vowels in IE and are what define full-grade. When we find *i, it is
>typically a zero-graded *y from a fuller form with one of the true
>vowels accompanying that consonant. So *wid- is the zero-grade of *weid-
>'to know', for example.

Ok, so you are postulating -ei- > - i - in CVC, that is fine. I thought we
were talking about a yV sequence at the end of a word that was being
zero-graded to -i. I am still trying to find ANY examples that might prove
it happenned. Can you help me?

BTW (and some off the track), weid- is probably a bad example, since it was
somewhat irregular in that there are no reduplicated forms for it.

>
> > I have not seen any evidence of any kind of sound law *-Vy -> -i when
> > used as a present-tense marker.
>
>No, it doesn't exist. It is always zero-grade in IE itself, just as the
>related demonstrative stem *i- appears to be. When speaking of Pre-IE
>however, there may have been full-grade preforms. In fact, I'm betting
>on it.

And those full grade preforms showed their existance how?

>= gLeN
>

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