"centum"/"satem" "exceptions" [was Re: Northwest IE attributes]

[Stanley Friesen]

At 01:53 AM 1/23/00 +0000, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote:
>**n'akut-.  The problem is the fate of stressed **i and **u, for
>which we can hypothesize spontaneous diphthongization to *ei, *eu
>(unlikely, I'd say, but an interesting possibility to account for
>possible Pre-PIE long *i: and *u:), or loss as in the case of the
>Slavic jers (with, as in Slavic, occasional retention to avoid
>excessive consonant clusters, e.g. **CiC > *C^C, but **CiCC >
>*C^eCC, likewise for **CuC > *CwC, **CuCC > *CweCC).

Why is it necessary to go this way?  IMHO, there are sufficient instances
of 'i' and 'u' in PIE the do *not* alternate with ablaut variants such as
'eu' and 'ei' to suggest the inheritance of those vowels from the Pre-PIE
stage, at least in some environments.

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May the peace of God be with you.         sarima at ix.netcom.com