Re: IE Thematic Vowel Rule

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

> ko mné "to me"
> k tebyé "to thee"
> k sebyé "to him/her/it (refl.)"
>
> so mnóy "with me"
> s tobóy "with thee"
> s sobóy "with him/her/it (refl.)"
>
> In other words, the half-dead vowel U ('jer' from PIE /u/)

becomes /o/

> before nasal, and zero before unvoiced.
>
> Could we from this example infer something about the fate of
> PIE 'intermediate' schwa from /a/, the ablaut vowel?

No, the Russian distribution is not vo/ko/so before nasal, v/k/s
elsewhere. I'm not quite sure exactly how it is, but it certainly
takes a cluster to bring out the o. And the reappearing nasal of
forms like s nim 'with him', s nimi 'with them' does not produce -o-.

More to the point, the distribution seen in the IE thematic vowel is
not one of +/- nasal either.

Jens