minimal pairs (was: PIE e/o Ablaut)

[proto-language]

Dear Stanley and IEists:

 ----- Original Message -----
From: "Stanley Friesen" <sarima at friesen.net>
Sent: Friday, March 31, 2000 9:22 PM

> At 03:33 PM 3/28/00 +0100, Larry Trask wrote:

<snip>

> And this is why I maintain /o/ and /e/ are distinct phonemes in PIE as
> reconstructed.  There is no *rule* for predicting them, unless one uses the
> very presence of /o/ to infer some conditioning factor (which is circular).

[PR]

The real question to be answered is why /*o/ does not occur in verbal roots.

It is this unanswered question, and the presence of /*o/ in inflected forms
of verbal roots that show /*e/  that prompts the search for a conditioning
factor.

Actually, sinceI know your position, I was curious as to whether Larry Trask
believes IE *o is phonemic.

I hope he will answer the question soon.

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
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mangi veit hvers hann af rstum renn." (Havamal 138)