Re: Dybo's law context

On Pon, listopad 22, 2007 10:15 pm, alexandru_mg3 reče:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Mate Kapović <mkapovic@...> wrote:
>>
>> On Ned, listopad 21, 2007 12:43 pm, alexandru_mg3 reče:
>> >
>> > I want to ask you what is the real context of Dybo's law?
>> >
>> > The rule can be formulated:
>> >
>> > For Italic, Celtic and Germanic:
>> >
>> > V:/RVaccented > V
>> >
>> > or
>> >
>> > VH /RVaccented > V
>> >
>> > V - vowel ; R - Resonant {m,n,l,r,w,y} H-laryngeal
>> >
>> > but
>> > Latin fu:mus < *dHuh2-mó- is still with u:
>> > Latin pu:rus < *puh2-ró- is still with u:
>> >
>> > and seems that there are also samples of short vowels from long
> vowels
>> > follows by a non-resonant
>>
>> Just a side-note, Dybo actually does not operate with shortening in
>> pretonic syllables since he believes in the PIE tones, not in PIE
>> Vedic-type free stress. Thus, what he claims is that *u: and *i:
> (i.e. *uH
>> and *iH) are shortened in Italic, Celtic and Germanic in the roots
> which
>> are (-) in Balto-Slavic (i.e. mobile accentual paradigm).
>>
>> Mate
>>
>
>
> Thanks, Mate.
>
> Honestly I'm more confused now, than I previously was (of course, not
> due to you, but due to what you tell me about Dybo)
>
> If I understood correctly, you tell me that Dybo sustains that PIE
> was a tone language?

Yes, with every morpheme in PIE being (+) or (-), (+) most likely being
high and (-) low tone.

> If so, what are his arguments?

In Balto-Slavic, the system of (+) and (-) was supposedly directly
preserved and in other languages you get traces of it - for instance in
shortenings in Germanic, Latin and Celtic, in wordformation and morphology
in Greek and Vedic (e.g. according to the supposed tone, Vedic has
different aorist-types etc.) etc. The theory stems from Dybo, Starostin
and Nikolaev (the latter two have first made the IE interpretation) but is
unjustly completely ignored in the Western IE-ist literature. I think they
have some good points there but I haven't really checked everything
(because the material is sizeable) and cannot form an objective opinion.
In any case, there are some very interesting parallels that have to be
explained in some way or another which are usually left without
explanation.

Mate