Re: [tied] a

----- Original Message -----
From: "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, July 22, 2005 7:42 AM
Subject: 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.

***
Patrick:

I am not sure what one gains by reducing the effective vowel inventory.

If the vowels are *e, *a, and *o, then zero-grades of /y/and /w/ can
supplement the vowel system as /i/ and /u/.


***

<snip>

> > 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.

***
Patrick:

Venneman may be right but I think that any language that goes through a
one-vowel stage is a prime candidate for independent Ablaut as well as root
enlargement through extensions and third radicals.

***

> >
> > 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?


***
Patrick:

Again, I think nothing comes "from /u/ . . . or zero-grade /w/". There is no
trouble for me since I posit *Vw _and_ *wV, which coincidentally have the
same zero-grade.

***

Torsten






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