--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Andrew Jarrette <anjarrette@...>
wrote:
> Is the sound /a/ considered to be an original phoneme of
Proto-Indo-European? Or is it only the result of laryngeal colouring
of former *e (or *o?).
********
I find on my bookshelf a thin volume simply entitled
"Indo-european /a/" William F. Wyatt Jr. Univ. of Pennsylvania Press
1970.
Quoting from the back cover blurb:
"This acutely reasoned study provides an account of the
development of the IE vowel system in its latest stages. Prof. Wyatt
believes that previous studies have, because of a long tradition of
morphological rather than phonological analysis, introduced into the
IE language entities -- laryngeal consonants --which have no place
there. ... He argues not only that /a/ was a part of the inventory of
IE vowels but also that it occurred more frequently and in more
positions in individual words than has previously been supposed...."
Rejecting laryngeals is maybe too heretical to be considered
seriously, but this seems to be something you might want to read.
Dan Milton