Re: Indo-European /a/

> I do not understand the last sentence of yours, about /a/
> being "finished getting ablauted". I agree if it just means that the
> foreign /a/ added a new vowel to the language at a time when any
> earlier /a/ had already been changed to /e/ (or its prestage) in pre-
> PIE. Your wording sounds cryptic to me; could you to specify what
> you really mean?
>

Sory for the smartalecky wording. What I meant is this: According to
Møller and Cuny, the ablaut vowel was /a/ in pre-PIE (and of course
e/o/zero in PIE). Therefore loans with /a/ (into a three-vowel system
i/u/a ?) into pre-PIE would appear in the daughter languaes as having
ablaut (since their /a/ would be subject to the laws which produced
the ablaut alternations), while those borrowed later (into a five-
vowel system i/e/(vacant)a/u/o ?) would appear to have stable /a/.


Torsten