[tied] Re: Short and long vowels

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "elmeras2000" <jer@...> wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham"
> <richard.wordingham@...> wrote:
>
> > Why does one need trios of resonants if there be only one laryngeal?
> > Why can't one just have three varieties of 'furtive vowel'? The
> > varying developments of British English _secretary_ to, for example,
> > /'sekritri/ and /'sek&tri/ spring to mind as an example of how varied
> > developments may be. I'm still not persuaded that Patrick's basic
> > thesis is disprovable within non-Anatolian Indo-European - it struck
> > me as unfalsifiable. If R.hx could become RVhx, why couldn't there
> > always have been a vowel there?
>
> What would trigger the three furtive vowels and cause them to be
> different? Three different laryngeals.

The three vowels would be the remains of pre-PIE **a, **i, **u, kept
distinct by the adjacent laryngeals, cf. the Hebrew hatephs compared
to schwa after other consonants.

> The presumed furtive vowels do
> not always stand where the full-grade vowel was. The schwas form
> position in the Rigveda: savitar- is scanned savHitar-, duhitá: is
> scanned duhHita:. Thus one cannot just leave out the laryngeal and
> have only a prop-vowel.

I don't think there is any problem with the maintenance of the
laryngeal - the Greek development of *-.RH- (conventional
reconstruction) > RV: supports the retention of a laryngeal. Nor do I
see that the metathesis of extra-short vowel and laryngeal to
laryngeal and extra-short vowel is unreasonable. Slavic matathesis of
vowel plus liquid and the anaptyctic echo vowel between laryngeal and
consonant in Hebrew are partial parallels.

> The
> three Greek colours of syllabic resonants followed by laryngeals
> present the same oppositions of coloration as the laryngeals had when
> they coloured adjacent /e/ in a prestage of PIE, That certainly
> indicates that the laryngeals were still there in the relevant post-
> PIE linguistic stage when the specifically Greek sonorant

colorations were effected.

The sameness of the colour actually suggests that the effects should
be of the same age! By Patrick's hypothesis, we are simply seeing
preservation of the same modification of the original timbres (/a ~ e
~ o/ rather than /a ~ i ~ u/), which is less remarkable.

Richard.