Re: Short and long vowels

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "etherman23" <etherman23@...>
wrote:

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

wrote:

> > After a brief but intense skirmish over zero-grade in I-I,
> > Patrick's critics abandoned the field to him.
>
> I can't speak for anyone else but I abandoned the field to him

because

> he doesn't seem to know the basics of PIE. I asked him to explain

the

> instances of Greek e, o, and a corresponding to e, o, and a in

other

> languages (since his previous explanation of the long grade implied
> that PIE *e, *o, and * all merged to *a) and he asked for

examples. He

> shouldn't need to provide explanations on a case by case basis when
> these correlations are widespread. These are really basic
> correspondances and he appears to be unaware of them. As it happens
> I'm not a fan of the laryngeal theory either, but I don't see the
> merit in his system.

By "critics" I referred to those who I thought (perhaps wrongly)
were only restating the traditional laryngeal position. That didn't
include you.

I was disappointed that Patrick didn't answer your query. Perhaps he
thought he couldn't cover every applicable root in every language.
But surely he could have given some examples of his own. Perhaps
Latin factus, status, and datus would have been good choices.

He did, however, address the issue in a terse general way at post
39337, where he says "Non-Greek *V?/h, in zero-grade, became /H/,
voiced /h/, then /a/".