Re: [tied] Re: IE Thematic Vowel Rule

When I was learning Russian, the instructors told us that the "o" after single consonantal prepositions and before consonant clusters was simply added to break up a difficult-to-pronounce cluster. I doubt that any of my instructors were linguists, most being refugees who got the language instructor jobs by virtue of being native speakers, so I don't know if there is any historical significance to the "o".

Andy Howey

elmeras2000 <jer@...> wrote:

--- 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