Re: [tied] Re: Short and long vowels; the explanation of Old Indian

----- Original Message -----

From: Miguel Carrasquer

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Sunday, July 17, 2005 3:35 PM

Subject: Re: [tied] Re: Short and long vowels; the explanation of Old Indian /i/ as zero-grade <a:>

On Sun, 17 Jul 2005 15:05:31 -0500, Patrick Ryan
<proto-language@...> wrote:

>Pre-PIE had three vowels: *e, *a, and *o.
>
>These vowels entered into combination with the 'laryngeal', *H, to produce *e:, *a:, and *o: in PIE.
>
>All pre-PIE short vowels became PIE *A, the Ablaut vowel/segment, which eventually had the manifestations *e, *o, or *Ø; which form *A took was a function of stress-accentual conditions.
>
>PIE retained pre-PIE *e:, *a:, and *o: unchanged.
>
>In many PIE-derived languages, the zero-grade of *e: was *e; of *a:, *a; and of *o:, o.

"Many" here to be read as "one".

>Indo-Iranian changed all PIE *e, *a, and *o to <a>.
>
>In open syllables, *o was further modified to <a:>.
>
>Indo-Iranian changed all PIE *e:, *a:, and *o: to <a:>.
>
>The zero-grade of Indo-Iranian <a> was <Ø> where possible; although various devices were used to ameliorate difficult combinations.
>
>The zero-grade of Indo-Iranian <a:> was <i>.

Only if <a:> was derived from *eH, *oH.

 

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Patrick:

 

Now I am really surprised at you. What happened to sthitá??? Is that not from *aH?

 

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Not for <a:> from */o/ in an open syllable, nor for <a:>
derived from PIE long */e:/ (the zero grade of both is <a>).
 

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Patrick:

 

Is it late at night where you are writing?

 

You are making no sense at all.

 

Above this, on this page, you affirmed that Old Indian <a:> comes from PIE *eH and *oH.

 

Pre-PIE *eH becomes PIE *e: which in turn becomes Old Indian <a:>.

 

For all Old Indian <a:>, the zero-grade is <i>.

 

______________________

 

If you do not believe this, give me one example of PIE *e: which became Old Indian <a:> which has the zero-grade <a>.

______________________

 

Also, do you have even one example of PIE *o, which because of it being in an open syllable, became Old Indian <a:> which has the zero-grade <a>? If so, provide it.

 

_____________________

 

All Old Indian <e:> is the product of <a> + <y>; naturally, the zero-grade would be <i>.

 

Example: PIE deik^- has the Old Indian participle diSTá.

 

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>Indo-Iranian <a> + <y> was <e:> (/ey/)

No it wasn't.  It was /ay/: OP daiva-, Avest. daeva-, Ved.
de:va-.

 

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Patrick:

 

You are proving what I have been saying: what resulted from Indo-Iranian /ai/ was written <ai> in OP and Av. but <e:> in Vedic. You are mistakenly assuming that Vedic written <e:> is phonetically /e:/ when it is /ai/.

 

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Therefore, /a:/ can never have been /ay/, or it would have
merged with /ay/ < *ei, *oi.

And what about Indo-Iranian /a:y/ (Vedic <ai>)?

 ***

Patrick:

 

Well, sorry I did not make this a little clearer.

 

The first result of pre-PIE *VH  was /Vç/. In most PIE-derived languages, this became /V:/ but in Indo-Iranian, it was first /aç/ and then voiced to /ay/ (almost long English <i>).

 

This distinguished it from <a> + <i>, which became first /ai/ then /ei/ when /a/ assimilated to /i/. /ei/ was written <ê> (long English <a>).

 

Inspite of their slight difference in pronunciation, it was enough to maintain a spelling difference.

 

When /ay/ was zero-graded/ the result was /y/, which was vocalized to /i/.

 

As for PIE *Vçi, which became PIE *V:I, and Indo-Iranian /açi/, which was vocalized to /ayi/ so that Vedic <ai> should be thought of as representing /ayi/ at the earliest stage.

 

 

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