Re: Scientist's etymology vs. scientific etymology

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Andrew Jarrette" <anjarrette@...> wrote:

>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@> wrote:
> >
> >
> > > >
> > > Point for consideration (?): If /a/ is always of foreign origin
> > > (since the original PIE didn't have /a/),
> >
> > Not always, cf eg. Latin schwa secundum.
> >
> > > why then didn't /a/ of foreign languages become borrowed as /e/ or
> /o/
> > > or some other native sound? As an example, after English lost the
> > > phonemes /y/ and /y:/, Old French /y:/ was borrowed as /eu/ (>

/iu/ >

> > > /ju:/)(as in <pure>) and Old French /y/ was borrowed as /u/ (as in
> > > <punish>). So if Latin, being a descendant of PIE, didn't have any
> > > /a/ inherited from PIE, why then did they adopt an entirely new
> > > unfamiliar sound?
> >
> > Because /a/ is a more 'natural' sound than /ü/. Only few vowel
> > inventories have the latter, almost all have the former; it is a
> > naturally given extreme of the vowel triangle. English took a road
> > comparable to that of PPIE: some /a/'s became /e/, some became /o/,
> > and the empty space of /a/ was filled with foreign loans, eg. 'spa'.
> >
> >
>
> I guess my point is that if Latin really is derived from a PIE that
> had no original /a/ phoneme, okay yes maybe words such as <lacus> and
> <mare> were borrowed from a coastal people who had the /a/ sound, thus
> increasing the frequency of /a/ (which by your criteria would arise in
> Latin only from schwa and schwa secundum, both zero grades), but how
> do you explain verbs like <sapere>, which has a Germanic cognate in OS
> <bisebbian, afsebbian>, or <rapere>, or any of the duratives with
> /e:/ as the formant like <patere>, <manere>, <habere>, <tacere>, etc.,
> leaving aside <capere> (and also <habere>) where the /a/ could be
> explained as developing from earlier /e/ under the influence of a
> preceding uvular consonant (*qap-). These are all verbs of primary
> (non-derived) declension, not transferred into one of the secondary
> declensions as one would expect of verbs borrowed from outside PIE, or
> no? I'm just somewhat skeptical of the idea that the majority of
> /a/'s in Latin have to be accounted for as having come from outside
> rather than having been inherited -- and therefore of the idea that
> PIE _absolutely_ had no /a/. But all this has been discussed very
> often before, I'm aware, yet I've never been fully convinced of the
> idea that /a/ did not exist. Just my personal feeling.
>

Before putting my foot in my mouth I should say that I realize that
all those instances of duratives with <a> in Latin might be explained
as schwa secundum. But if <lacus> and <mare> were borrowed, why does
Celtic have *lok- and *mor-? Could the /a/ of the donor language have
been articulated back, as /A/, and this then have been heard as /O/ by
the Celts? What about words like <vacca> which has a correspondent in
Skt <vaça:> whose short /a/ of the first syllable suggests that the
parent form did not have /o/, but must have had /a/ or /e/, and why
would /we/ become /wa/ in Latin?

Andrew