--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Jens Elmegård Rasmussen <elme@...>
wrote:
> For
> Hittite, Melchert has made a strong case for the separation of /a/
> and /o/ by their different ability to undergo lengthening: /a/ is
> lengthened under the accent, but only in an open syllable, while
> accented /o/ is lengthened in both open and closed syllables. And
> Brugmann's Law does not apply to the reflex of *a in Indo-Iranian.
My feeling is that there was something about PIE that made the merger
of /a/ and /o/ highly likely, but not certain. Different dialects
therefore show different outcomes and different degrees of merger.
It reminds me of NW Germanic umlaut, which is by no means uniform
(not even Old English umlaut is!) and the varying development of
short stressed Latin /e/ to /ie/ in daughter languages.
Is there any respectable way of describing such tendencies? Torsten
would probably suggest class differences (as in his Nordwestblock
monologues), or high v. low registers, but I'm not sure that they
would work.
Richard.