Re: Re[6]: [tied] Re: PIE initial *a

----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...>
To: "Patrick Ryan" <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2008 12:51 PM
Subject: Re[6]: [tied] Re: PIE initial *a


> At 4:40:48 AM on Thursday, May 15, 2008, Patrick Ryan wrote:
>
> > From: "fournet.arnaud" <fournet.arnaud@...>
>
> >> From: "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...>
>
> [...]
>
> >>> Please note that I am not in the least defending Patrick's
> >>> 'law of phonological entropy', which is little more than a
> >>> license to to make arbitrary adjustments to adjust the
> >>> theoretically predicted forms to fit the actual data.
>
> [...]
>
> > First, I would contend that a change from *a: to *a is
> > 'phonological' in any full sense of the word.
>
> [Typo corrected.] Not when the conditioning factor is
> semantic/lexical. And even if the conditioning factors were
> phonological, the 'law', as worded, would in fact be merely
> a tendency. As stated it would also allow, for example,
> *dH > *d (loss of aspiration) and *d > *t (loss of voicing)
> under the same semantic conditions that allow loss of length.
>
> And in another vein altogether, it fails to explain multiple
> *ag- and *al- roots in Pokorny.
>
> [...]
>
> Brian

***

Patrick:

The question with *ag- and *al- sounds fascinating.

Could you give a little more detail?


***