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

[Miguel Carrasquer Vidal]

Stanley Friesen <sarima at friesen.net> wrote:

>At 05:44 PM 2/25/00 +0000, Patrick C. Ryan wrote:

>>But, let us approach this from another avenue.

>>1) What I believe we find in the earliest IE is one vowel, /*e/, which has a
>>conditioned variant , /*o/.

>Many have tried to make this so.  But all attempts I have seen come up
>short.  At the level of the final unity, there are many minimal pairs that
>differ in /*e/ vs. /*o/.  It is simply not possible for them to have been
>conditioned variants anymore well prior to the breakup.

>It is possible that some pre-PIE language had such conditioned variation,
>but any such conditioning factor had disappeared by the time we reach the
>reconstructible time layers.  [One viable possibility is an old accent
>system as the conditioning factor, with conditioning destroyed by a shift
>in the accent pattern to the one reconstructed for PIE].

The accent pattern had certainly something to do with zero grade
vs. normal grade, no doubt about that.  The influence of accent
on e-grade vs. o-grade is less transparent [quite apart from the
fact that it makes little sense phonetically].  There are of
course obvious cases like the pattern [stressed] -e'(:)R vs.
[unstressed] -o(:)R in the resonant stems.

The e/o alternation in the thematic vowel is, one had to agree
with Jens Rasmussen, caused by the quality of the following
consonants (*e before voiceless/silence, *o before voiced).

The solution, I think, is to derive qualitative *e/*o-Ablaut from
an earlier quantitative **a/**a:-Ablaut, with developments /a/ >
/&/ > /e/ and /a:/ > /A:/ > /o(:)/.  Lengthening caused by
ensuing voiced/lenis consonants is well-known (e.g. English).
The transition from quantitative to qualitative distinction in
vowels is also commonplace, in the case of /a/ with languages
generally equally divided between long-backers (a: > o:) and
short-backers (a > o).  Pre-PIE was a long-backer.  I don't have
a good explanation for the poim'e:n ~ d'aimo:n phenomenon
(stressed vowels resisted lengthening by following resonant?).
Not all cases of e/o alternation seem to be due to secondary
lengthening of **a, there were probably primary **a:'s as well.
The backed *o: resulting from **a: generally lost its length
(i.e. at a time when length was no longer phonemic), so it must
predate "lengthened grade" and the laryngeal lengthenings.
Brugmann's Law shows that the length was still allophonic in PII.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl