Rob to Miguel:

>Good point. Do you know why it only changes to an /o/ when it's a
>"thematic vowel"?

In my scheme, the thematic vowel was originally a schwa
in early Late IE (c.5000 BCE). The schwa lengthened before
voiced phonemes in the same way that "i" automatically
lengthens in "bid" [bI.d] versus "bit" [bI?]. Later, the
long schwa became *o and the short schwa merged with *e.
Thus *ekwesyo (*ekw&sy&.) versus *ekwom (*ekw&.m).


- gLeN



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