--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, enlil@... wrote:
> Exu:
> > However, -i is (as far as I know) a final vowel when used as a
tense
> > marker, and hence can not be a thematic vowel in the commonly used
> > sense.
>
> It depends on how you mean. It does appear that we have *i-stems as
> alternates of *o-stems (the 'thematic stems') for whatever reason.
In
> that sense, *i-stems might be said to be another kind of thematic
stem.
> Of course 'thematic stems' are being used untraditionally here in a
> sense more sensitive to the apparent etymology of these items and
you're
> correct that thematic stems are normally of the alternating-*e/*o
kind.
>
Burrow "The Sanskrit Language" tells me that Sanskrit has two types
of inflections ending in a vowel: the u/i (w/y)-stems and the
thematic stems. So I said to myself:
-u
-i
-A
where is "the Ablaut vowel" which by now I think everyone agrees was
once an /a/. Therefore, earlier the same day...
-u
-i
-a
Tum-de-dum.
I read a sensible article recently, which I of course forgot the
author and title of, addressing (i. a.) the question of the true
nature of the semi-vowels y/w vs. the vowels i/u. The obvious
conclusion was that i/u > y/w is possible, y/w > i/u is impossible,
which means all y's and w's in PIE were once vowels. In other words,
p-PIE was a three-vowel system of the classical i,u,a kind.
Kuhn in his last book "Das letzte Indogermanisch" argues for a layer
of place-names he found peripheral to Krahe's a-dominated Old
European place names, spread all the way to the Black Sea and
Caucasus He called them the ar-/ur- names, because they seemed to
ablaut a/u/(more rare)i. Ex. River Ource in France, ex-island Urk in
Holland. I might add some unexplained a/u/i ablaut in supposed (but
odd-behaving) IE words: apa "water", but Latvian upè, (note ib- in
Basque and supposed Vasconic placenames); abal- "apple" but Old Irish
ubull, ab "away, down", (Nordwestblock in) Germanic "up", Gothic ib-
(Meid notes of rivernames Germany: Geldap, Denmark: Geldbæk, Latvia:
Geldup; Denmark doesn't have -ap names, -up is becoming more common
in Eastern Europe; perhaps it's just an expression: in Germania you
lived down the river (fluss-ab), in Latvia "up the river" (fluss-auf).
So, was PIE once a an a/u/i language, and, if yes, is that the ar-/ur-
placename language (but note that all my examples come from a single
word, that much-procreating *(H-)bh/p-r/l-)?
Torsten