Re: Indo-Iranian Vowel Collapse (was: IIr 2nd Palatalisation)

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham"
<richard.wordingham@...> wrote:

>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ryan" <proto-

language@...>

> wrote:
>
> > I thought it unlikely that, having gone through a radical vowel
> > reduction once before, after which the Ablaut-vowel developed
> > into *e and *o, that Old Indian would be subjected to a similar
> > radical vowel reduction, <e> and <o> becoming <a>. But, it
> > appears to be the only reasonable explanation. Presumably,
> > Dravidian influence.
>
> Why Dravidian influence? Firstly, I thought Dravidian languages
> tended to have 5-vowel systems, not 3-vowel systems, and secondly, I
> thought the vowel collapse applied to all of Indo-Iranian.

I know that Tamil has a 5-vowel system, but it seems that it could
have rather transparently derived from an earlier 3-vowel system in a
manner similar to Sanskrit: /ai/ > /e/, /au/ > /o/.

> A third point is that the merger of short /a/ and short /o/ is
> pretty widespread. It not only occurs in a once-contiguous swathe
> from Indo-Iranian to Germanic, but also in Hittite. The unusual
> feature is the further merger of *e with *a and *o.

Is there a way to map the merger of short /a/ and short /o/ as an
isogloss? Furthermore, how can we determine whether the apparent
merger of short /a/ and short /o/ was indeed a merger or whether the
separation of /a/ and /o/ (Italic, Greek, Celtic?) was an innovation?

- Rob