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

From: Miguel Carrasquer
Message: 39281
Date: 2005-07-17

On Sun, 17 Jul 2005 16:47:43 -0500, Patrick Ryan
<proto-language@...> wrote:

>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Miguel Carrasquer<mailto:mcv@...>
> To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com<mailto: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@...<mailto: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.
>
> ***
> Patrick:
>
> Now I am really surprised at you. What happened to sthitá??? Is that not from *aH?

No. It's from *sth2tó-.

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

And you affirmed (correctly!) that "[i]n open syllables, *o
was further modified to <a:>".

Now I don't know what exact chronology you have in mind, but
I merely wanted to point out that not all Indo-Iranian
/a:/'s have a zero-grade /i/. Just the ones with a
laryngeal origin.


> Pre-PIE *eH becomes PIE *e: which in turn becomes Old Indian <a:>.
>
> For all Old Indian <a:>, the zero-grade is <i>.

Obviously not.

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

3sg. ta:s.t.i -- 3pl. taks.ati


> ______________________
>
> 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.

nom/acc. pa:t, pa:dam -- gen. padas (etc.)

> _____________________
>
> 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.
>
> ***
>
>
> >Indo-Iranian <a> + <y> was <e:> (/ey/)
>
> No it wasn't. It was /ay/: OP daiva-, Avest. daeva-, Ved.
> de:va-.
>
>
> ***
> Patrick:
>
> You are proving what I have been saying: what resulted from Indo-Iranian /ai/ was written <ai> in OP and Av.

Because it *was* <ai> (<aI> or <ae> in Avestan).

>but <e:> in Vedic. You are mistakenly assuming that Vedic written <e:> is phonetically /e:/ when it is /ai/.

You mean "phonologically". Vedic <e:> was phonetically
[e:], phonologically /ay/.

The mistake is thinking it was /ey/. There was no
phonological /e/ in Indo-Iranian or Vedic.

> ***
>
> 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>).

Iranian has /ai/, so that doesn't wash.

> 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.

Again, you seem to be blissfully unaware of Iranian. Old
Persian writes Ca-a-i for /a:i/, as opposed to Ca-i for
/ai/. And the Old Persian syllabary had a sign for /yi/.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...