Re: *a/*a: ablaut

> There are a number of PIE stems which present clear evidence for *a/*a:
> ablaut, and in which the presence of an internal laryngeal is unlikely
> or impossible. Roots with this ablaut typically distinguish the "strong"
> grade *a: and the "weak" grade *a (though their distribution may be
> disturbed by analogy) but have no zero grade.

So I suppose that the attempts to get rid of the vowel /a/
at the expense of adding instead one extra laryngeal H4
can not work, because such semiconsonat would not behave
in the zero grade like the other laryngeals
and thus it cannot be counted to laryngeals.
But let us suppose that along with laryngeals
(h2 / h3 probably voiceless / voiced pharyngeal fricative),
there was another group of semiconsonants,
x2 / x3 (maybe voiceless / voiced velar fricative),
whose colloring effects in full grade
and syllabic form in zero grade would be these:

ex2 > a: (eh2 > a:)
ox2 > a: (oh2 > o:)
x2. > a (h2. > Gr. a, IIr. i)

Would this assumption be enough to made such roots fully regular?

> A root like *//weh2g^// could be
> expected to produce zero-grade derivatives with *uh2g^- and some o-grade
> forms like perf. *we-woh2g^-e. No such forms are attested anywhere. We
> have the Gk. present (*w)ágnu:mi 'I break' and perf. éa:ge 'is broken' <
> *we-wá:g^-e, Skt. vájra- < *wág^-ro- 'thunderbolt' (a substantivised
> adjective). Forms like *wag^- should not exist at all, as there is no
> way they could be derived from any allomorph of *//weh2g^//.

This would be regularly
*we-wox2g^-e > *we-wa:g^-e

wx2.´g^-ro- > wág^-ro- (paradigm like wl.´kW-o- ?)

> Similar difficulties beset adjectives like Lat. glaber, Slavic *gladUkU
> 'smooth'. If the latter reflects *gHlah2dH-u-, where does the short /a/
> of <glaber> and OHG glat come from? The zero grade of *-lah2- would be
> *-l.h2-, which would have given Latin -la:- and Germanic -ul-.

Thus here X would have more sonority than L (liquids)
and the zero grade *gHlx2dH-
would be *gHlx2.dH- rather than *gHl.x2dH-

> Then we
> have nouns like *wá:stu- 'dwelling, settlement' (Ved. vá:stu-, Toch.A
> was.t, B ost) ~ wástu- (Gk.(w)ástu); the variants look like relicts of
> an acrostatic paradigm with *a/*a: ablaut, and again a reconstruction
> like *wah2stu- can't account for the existence of forms with short *a,
> or the conspicuous absence of a zero-grade *uh2.

Here this hypothesic cannot explain the short form in acrostatic paradigm,
both strong *we:x2stu- and weak *wex2stu-
would give long **wa:stu-.
(Proterokinetic paradigm would give
strong *wa:stu- and weak **wasteu-.)


P.A.