On 2008-02-11 21:41, Patrick Ryan wrote:
> If you have the sequence -*e:H2, and the *H2 neither colors nor
> lengthened the vowel, hod did *e: get to be long in the first place?
There were underlyingly long vowels as well as a number of
productive vowel-lengthening processes in PIE, long before the loss of
laryngeals (which took place after the disintegration of the
protolanguage). LIV (Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben) lists more
than 30 acrostatic "Narten roots" (with *e:/*e ablaut in the present
tense). There are long-vowelled sigmatic formations such as *g^ne:h3-s-
or the familiar sigmatic aorist (*pré:k^-s-t/*prék^-s-n.t), and
"Szemerényi lengthening" in *p&2té:r, *népo:ts, etc.
Piotr