Re: Schwa (Was PIE Reconstruction)

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "C. Darwin Goranson"
<cdog_squirrel@...> wrote:

> > > Why a schwa?
>
> Well, surely the schwa was used as a vowel in PIE. Doesn't the use of
> laryngeals attempt to shelve it? If so, I think that could be a
> mistake. I think that P@... is more pronouncible that Pxter or Phter,
> again unless PIEin the early stages was doing what Kartvelian is now,
> using as few vowels as possible in words.

With every language, there's a difference between what's phonemic (that
is, distinctive from other sounds) and what's phonetic (what is
actually pronounced). Every language has more phonetic sounds than
phonemic sounds. IE must have been the same way. I surmise that e.g.
the word for "father" was phonemically /pxters/ but *phonetically*
[p&x'ters]. In other words, a schwa was probably pronounced, but it
was not recognized as a separate phoneme.

- Rob