[tied] Re: Short and long vowels

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Brophey" <TBrophey@...> wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham"
> <richard.wordingham@...> wrote:
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Brophey" <TBrophey@...>
> wrote:
> >
> >> It doesn't sound like a good idea to me. The intent is to support
> >> Patrick's non-coloring laryngeal hypothesis, right?
> >> * It duplicates notation: Your *E = *&1, *A = *&2, *O = *&3
> >
> > Are these *E, *A, *O vovalic? I had thought they were neutral.
> > Also, they're not used on Cybalist.

'Vovalic' is a mistyped 'vocalic'. My point was that I thought that
the usual IE meaning of *E, *A, *O in typographically unconstrained
environments was the laryngeals, whether consonantal or vocalic.

> >> * Your *A collides with Patrick's *A for the Ablaut vowel.
> >
> > An idiosyncratic notation.
> >
> To be sure, but an intuitive one: A for Ablaut. In any case it seems
> to me there is a need for a symbol to represent this vowel. Would
> you like to propose an alternative?

Lower case 'e' is conventionally used.

> >> * Patrick's zero-grade (as I understand it) is full short.
> >
> Here is how I interpret Patrick:
> In Greek, *aH = *a: = /aa/, a two-mora vowel;
> under zero-grade this reduces to *a = /a/, a one-mora vowel.
> In Greek, *eH = *e: = /ee/, a two-mora vowel;
> under zero-grade this reduces to *e = /e/, a one-mora vowel.
> In Greek, *oH = *o: = /oo/, a two-mora vowel;
> under zero-grade this reduces to *o = /o/, a one-mora vowel.
> In Sanskrit, *aH = *a: = /ay/, a two-mora glide;
> under zero-grade this reduces to *i = /i/, a one-mora vowel.
>
> Perhaps this is just my interpretation, and I certainly agree that
> precise phonetic details are not knowable. But I see no reason to
> assume there is an extra-short vowel.

So what is the Proto-Indo-European reconstruction? Zero-grade is
generally agreed to have been established by this stage and indeed
zero-grading must already have become grammaticalised, for we have
such monstrosities as *wl´kWos (or *wl´pWos) 'wolf' and *septm´
'seven' where an acute marks the stress. Therefore a reconstruction
needs some method of indicating zero-grading. With the conventional
laryngeal model this is not a problem - the matter is as easily
resolved as for the zero grading of *ei (or *ey - I'm not implying a
distinction), which can quite simply be written as *i.

For the cases above, we do need a distinction. A simple notation is a
breve, which indicates shortness or, in metrical analyses at least, a
lack of strength. In a typographically unrestricted environment, you
might write it over both vowel and laryngeal, but here the best one
can do here is to effectively mark it over the vowel(s), and even the
notational options are not appealing.

Using upper case for this breve marking, we may, following Patrick's
idea, provisionally reconstruct *dHugAhter-, as opposed to
conventional *dHugh2ter-, as the PIE form for 'daughter'. We can then
debate about *-Ah- (based on *bHrah2ter-, *mah2ter-) versus *-hA-
based on Vedic _duhita:_ (possibly [duh\hita:], where [h\] is the
breathy glottal fricative, and [h] is the remnant of the laryngeal,
making the first syllable long by position).

Richard.