Re: ka and k^a [was: [tied] *kW- "?"]

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, glen gordon <glengordon01@...> wrote:

> Rob:
> > I am inclined to take all words with apparently
> > non-alternating /a/ to be loanwords borrowed after
> > IE had (re-)phonemicized /a/.
>
> Unnecessary hypothesis. There is nothing a priori
> "foreign" about *a. You can't have a vowel system
> without it!

As Torsten kindly pointed out, /a/ as a phoneme is rather rare in
English. While I think that /a/ was always a phoneme to some extent in
IE, it need not be very common at all times.

- Rob