Re: [tied] a

> >
> > As I understand the short-and-long-vowel saga, Patrick rejects

the

> > classical view of IE vowels since he doesn't like the idea of a
> > single-vowel language.
> >
> > But no matter what you do to the laryngelas, this fact remains:

all

> > PIE verbs and nouns have root ablaut. That means the root vowel

was

> > the ablaut vowel. That vowel was /a/ in pre-PIE. So all verbs and
> > nouns roots had the vowel /a/. Not nice.
>
> ***
> Patrick:
>
> Torsten, I appreciate your efforts to, at least, understand what I

am

> proposing, whether you eventually agree or not.
>
> I fully subscribe to the idea of a one-vowel pre-PIE as a stepping

stone to

> *A, the Ablaut vowel (*e/*o/*Ø) but only for non-long vowels.
>
> ***
>
>
> > But suppose pre-PIE was a three-vowel language: /i/, /a/, /u/
>
> ***
> Patrick:
>
> In my opinion, impossible. /i/ and /u/ would have interefered with

the

> reflexes of /y/ and /w/.

That's right. If you assume they existed indepently of /i/, /u/. If
yuo assume instead that PIE /y/, /w/ were once full vowels /i/, /u/,
the problem goes away.

>
> ***
>
> > Under certain conditions (no stress, stress, unknown),
> > /a/ > nothing, /e/, /o/
> >
> > Under the same set of conditions
> > /i/ > /i/, /ei/, /oi/
> >
> > And, under the same set of conditions
> > /u/ > /u/, /eu/, /ou/
>
> ***
> Patrick:
>
> Absolutely upside down for what I am proposing. /ew/, zero-

grade /u/; not

> /u/, full-grade /ew/.
>
> ***

OK.

>
>
> > None of this is phonetically implausible. Re the reflexes of /i/
> > and /u/, cf the inflection of nominal i- and u- stems.
> >
> > We now have something that is identical to the classical view of
> > PIE, except that the striking similarity between the three

series of

> > reflexes is spurious (but nonetheless real). The question is what
> > the PIEers made of this. How was it changed into a system?

Vennemann

> > assumes Semitic influence to account for the systematicness of
> > Germanic ablaut in verbs, maybe this is the case here too?
>
> ***
> Patrick:
>
> I have looked hard at Semitic vowel-patterns, and can see no

connection;

But Vennemann's idea was not that specific Semitic vowel-patterns
were adopted in PIE, but that the idea of vowel-patterning was.

> >
> > The problem of this analysis (ie starting from the zero grade) is
> > how to account for i- and u- ablaut in the other direction,
> > namely /i/, /ie/, /io/ and /u/, /ue/, /uo/
>
> ***
> Patrick:
>
> Could you elucidate what you mean here?
>
>

You can either choose full grade (/eu/ vs /ue/ as your starting
point, in which case you easily separate /u/, /eu/, /ou/
from /u/, /ue/, /uo/, or zero grade /w/ as I do, in which case you
will have trouble deriving both /eu/, /ou/ and /ue/, /uo/ from /u/;
what is the rule which selects one or the other?


Torsten