Re: IE Thematic Vowel Rule

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Rob" <magwich78@...> wrote:

> I understand the connection. Undeniably, we see o-vocalism before

a

> voiced consonant (or another vowel) in the "thematic vowel".
> However, correlation and causation are two different things, and

the

> former does not necessarily imply the latter.

I find your attitude very strange. You are obviously clinging to the
mere hope that the evidence we have is deceitful. Why not work out
rules that explain the language as we observe it? That's what I have
done.

> Now, I do not deny the possibility that final *-s was voiced as a
> result of sandhi phenomena.

Why would it be a sandhi phenomenon in pre-PIE? There are no known
alternants, so there is no problem of alternation to account for. To
me it looks like a phoneme /z/ opposed to /s/.

> Quite often in Sanskrit there are forms
> with underlying /-s/ that sometimes show up with /-r/ in sandhi.
> It's possible that those positions show earlier /-z/ which further
> weakened to /-r/ (i.e. sandhi rhotacism). The question of whether
> this phenomenon existed in IE itself is still an open one, though.

The Sanskrit -r is indeed from a voiced retroflex *-z. (Iranian z^),
whích was a sandhi variant of RUKI *-s. (Iranian s^), but that is
not relevant for a prestage of PIE.

> > > Looking at the o-stem neuter nouns, we have the following:
> > >
> > > Nom./Acc. sg. *-om pl. *-a: < *-ex
> >
> > Correct. Note that *x is unvoiced, but colors *e to *a and then
> > lengthens it.
>
> The only way there can be e-vocalism in the suffix is if it was
> originally stressed -- the laryngeals don't seem to color /o/.

Also,

> I wouldn't say the laryngeal here "colors *e to *a", but rather

the

> original quality of the vowel -- /a/ -- is preserved.

/H2/ does colour /e/, for in cases of lengthened grade the form is
e:H2 or H2e: (not a:H2, H2a:).

> > > The obvious conclusion here is that there was a stem-formant *-

ex

> > > to which the case endings were agglutinated. It also seems

that

> > > this formant is identical to the neuter plural ending *-ex.
> >
> > So now in all cases the *e is followed by *x which colors and
> > lengthens it to *a:. With Jens' Law we can reconstruct a single
> > thematic vowel *e that will explain both paradigms.
>
> I don't think that the feminine suffix contained a thematic

vowel.

> That is, I don't think the vowel of the suffix was separate from

the

> laryngeal. I reconstruct a unitary suffix *-áx > *-éx (in

*phonemic*

> terms; the phonetic realization would have remained [-áx], I

think).

That is wrong. The nom.-acc. neuter plural is a strong case and so
cannot have an underlying vowel; that excludes *-eH2 leaving only *-
H2.

> To me, the "thematic feminine" declension seems to
> have actually been an *athematic* one. The problem with Jens'

theory

> is that it is typologically unrealistic. Absent any conditioning
> factor(s), there is no reason why a language would treat stem-

final

> vowels somehow differently from all other vowels. Thus, I do not
> think that Jens' system is simpler than mine.

It is plainly observable that there is a major break in the words at
that point. The flexives have a more varied vocalism than the stem-
forming suffixes, so *something* has been going at this particular
morpheme boundary. Some are just unwilling to take stock of it for
reasons I cannot respect. My own suggestion is that word-final
vowels once had a certain prominence later reflected by the special
resistence towards ablaut reductions. In what way is that
impossible? Or inadequate? Or complicated? Or contrived?

Jens