From: fournet.arnaud
Message: 55755
Date: 2008-03-23
----- Original Message -----
From: Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
PIE *e is by far the most common vowel, followed by *o, and the least
common by far is *a. The most common laryngeals are *h2 and
*h1, the least common, by far, is *h3.
=======
Do we have statistics about this ?
Arnaud
=================
The Slavic a:-stem instrumental -ojoN, like the Skt.
instrumental -aya: and the Armenian oblique -oj^, derive
from PIE *-o-jh2-eh1 (that is: thematic vowel *-o- (this is
the expected shape before a voiced segment) + feminine
suffix *-jh2- in zero grade + stressed instrumental suffix
-éh1) > *-ojh2áh1. In Skt. *-ojHa: regularly gives -aya:
(without Brugmann), in Armenian we have -oj^ with regular
loss of the final vowel and jH > jj > j^. In Slavic we would
have expected *-aja: > +-oja, but an *-N was added (as often
happens in vowel-final case-endings), giving *-aja:N >
*-ajo:N > *-ajaN > -ojoN. The Slavic form cannot be from
*-oje:(N), which would have given +-ojeN.
This shows that the sequence *h2eh1 gives (H)a: (as in Latin
*h2eh1sah2 > a:ra). Apparently, *h3 in turn tops *h2 in a
word like *h2eh3m(e)n [or possibly *h3eh2-mn-] > Lat. o:men.
If the laryngeal merely preserved the quality of the
original vowel, we would always have laryngeals of the same
colouring [the same subscript in terms of the laryngeal
theory] on both ends of the vowel. The fact that we do have
*h2eh1, *h3eh2/*h2eh3 etc. disproves that. The fact that we
_don't_ seem to have *h1eh1, *h2eh2 ot *h3eh3 tends to
confirm that *h1, *h2 and *h3 were separate phonemes, given
that consonants do not normally repeat themselves in PIE
roots (reduplications excepted).
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
=======================
This is extremely interesting.
Do we have anatolian data supporting
*h2eh1sah2 > a:ra ?
*H2eH1-s
What are the other "mixed" Hx_Hy
we have ?
Arnaud
==============