Re: [tied] Re: Short and long vowels

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

From: tombrophey

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 2005 12:48 PM

Subject: [tied] Re: Short and long vowels

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham"
<richard.wordingham@......> wrote:
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ryan" <proto-
language@......>
> wrote:
>
> Richard:
> >   Let's see if I can understand what Patrick is trying to convey:
> >
> >   1) In general, pre-PIE short *e, *a and *o (or some similar
trio of
> >   vowels) merged.  However, the distinctions were preserved next
to
> >   laryngeals.
> >
> >   2) The zero grades from *eH, *aH and *oH were extra-short
vowels *e_X,
> >   *a_X, *o_X.  Compensatory lengthening need not have happened
here.
> >   (Incidentally, is plain *eH > e: necessarily PIE?  It may be
common
> >   recorded IE, but that is a different matter.)
> >
> >   3) In Greek, the extra short vowels became normal short
vowels.
> >   Elsewhere they merged to give what used to be seen as PIE *&,
which
> >   merged with *i in Indo-Iranian and with *a elsewhere.
> >
> >   Is Point 2 so incredible?
>
> Patrick:
> >   Personally, Point 2 does not bother me. It results in much the
> same as I have postulated.
>
> What are you postulating phonetically then?  Your ideas as you
phrase
> them are open to ridicule, and I expressed my best understanding of
> what you are trying to say.  I suppose the laryngeal may have
survived
> quite late -  laryngeals are discernible, for example, in the
metre of
> the Rgveda.
>
> >   But Point 3 strikes me as a step backward. I am trying to
explain
> _why_ we have specifically <i> in Old Indian.
>
> But Point 3 is the observed outcome.  Are you disputing it?
>
> >   Merge with /i/, why not with /u/? See my point?
>

Patrick,
I hope you realize how unclear you are being. Some people seem to be
orthodox laryngealists who respond to your heresy by just restating
the orthodox doctrine rather than following the heresy to see where
it leads. Richard at least tried to understand you, but you rejected
at least part of his interpretation. I too have an open mind on the
subject, but I am confused by what you say. Here is what I do and
don't understand of your theory:

 

***

Patrick:

 

Lack of clarity is certainly not what we need. Let me explain, though, that I had the germ of this idea when I entered the discussion, and have been attempting to formulate it more completely as I encounter objections.

 

***

You say in Pre-PIE:
*VH > *V: for example *dheH > *dhe:, *staH > *sta:, *doH > *do:
I am unclear on whether the laryngeal survives this: On the one
hand, you said in a previous post that the laryngeal "sacrifices"
itself. On the other hand, you still find the laryngeal in your II
analysis. So I take it what you really mean is:
*VH > *V:H for example *dheH > *dhe:H, *staH > *sta:H, *doH > *do:H
Where the H in the result is lost in Greek with no further effect.

***

Patrick:

 

Much as I would like to have support from any quarter, I have to say this is not what I have in mind.

 

If I said "pre-PIE", then I misspoke.

 

At the PIE pre-break stage (Hittite from PIE), I believe /?/ and /h/ (from pre-PIE /h/ and /H/; Nostratic /¿/ had already become PIE /y/) were still present. Still present when Hittite broke off and present in Hittite, written <Ø> for /?/ (as in Modern German) and <h> for /h/. At this time, there would have been no long vowels in PIE. Probably no zero-grade either, just a reduced-grade for stress-unaccented vowels but final open vowels were eliminated if stress-unaccented.

 

PIE formed palatals from dorsals before *e and *d(h)w-/*t(h)w from coronals before *o.

 

At this point, the PIE's came into contact with a people speaking a non-PIE language, which occasioned two major changes: the stress-accent was moved to the root-syllable; and reduced-grade vowels and even stress-accented vowels not followed by /h/ or /?/ — here your idea may have some application if vowels stress-accented vowels before /h/ or /?/ were lengthened — became *A (the Ablaut vowel: *e/*o/*Ø; possibly because this non-PIE language was tonal), i.e. zero-grade came into play. The only possible /a/ in PIE was from *h/?a- or *ah/?. 

 

At this point, Indo-Iranian broke off; /?/and /h/ merged into /h/; because of predominant *e-vocalism in root-syllables, /h/ was 'fronted' to /ç/ in Indo-Iranian; subsequently, *e/*o were leveled to *a. /aç/ became /ay/ in the way to /aa/; zero-grade /ay/ became /i/.

 

Greek and the other remaining PIE speakers separated.

 

Greek *V?/h became *V:; zero-grade *V: was *V.

 

Non-Greek *V?/h, in zero-grade, became /H/, voiced /h/, then /a/. *V?/h in full-grade became *V:.

 

At least, this is a framework that can be analyzed though I imagine it needs some tweaking.

 

***

 

I am unclear on what time frame you think that the zero-grade change
happens in: On the one hand, I had always understood that zero-grade
(and Ablaut generally) was a PIE (if not Pre-PIE) phenomenon. On the
other hand you talk about zero-grade in your II analysis. So there
are two possibilities:

Case 1: Zero-grade before II
Zero-grade shortens the long vowel:
*V:H > *VH for example *dhe:H + *tós > *dheHtós, *sta:H + *tós >
*staHtós, *do:H + *tós > *doHtós
Later the normal II changes occur.
*dheHtos > *dhaHtas, *staHtos > *sthaHtas, *doHtos > *daHtas
Brugmann is not relevant because the syllable is closed by the H.
The laryngeal at this time is realized by /ç/ so we have:
*dhaçtas, *sthaçtas, *daçtas
This undergoes a zero-grade change (a second one?!) to:
*dhçtas, *sthçtas, *dçtas
/ç/ is voiced to /i/, producing the attested results:
*dhçtas > dhitas, *sthçtas > sthitas, *dçtas > ditas

Case 2: Zero-grade _not_ before II
The normal II changes occur.
*dhe:Htos > *dha:Htas, *sta:Htos > *stha:Htas, *do:Htos > *da:Htas
The laryngeal at this time is realized by /ç/ so we have:
*dha:çtas, *stha:çtas, *da:çtas
This undergoes a zero-grade change presumably to:
*dhaçtas, *sthaçtas, *daçtas
From here I don't see how we can get from here to the attested
results.

If I've misinterpreted other than where I've _said_ I don't
understand, please consider that you may not have explained well.

Tom

 

***

Patrick:

 

Case 1 is more like what I have in mind but see above.

 

I confess, mea culpa, that I have not explained well. As I said, this has been done on the fly.

 

I appreciate your kind efforts to bring some order to my disjointed thoights — I am not being sarcastic!

 

Thanks.

 

 

 
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