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

[Patrick C. Ryan]

Dear Stanley and IEists:

Thank you for your thoughtful response.

 ----- Original Message -----
From: "Stanley Friesen" <sarima at friesen.net>
Sent: Tuesday, February 29, 2000 3:56 AM

> 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/.

<SF>
> 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.

<PR>
Well, let us look at those pairs which you feel display minimal contrast.

<SF>
> 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].

<PR>
I agree that an older accentual system is a reasonable theory, which I also
agree is viable. So, if I understand correctly, you are proposing that this
older system predates PIE?

<SF>
> Note, when there is only one non-high vowel in a language, it is *always*
> best viewed as /a/, not /e/.  (It may have /e/ as an *allophone* in some
> environments, but its neutral allophone will always be low).

<PR>
I agree 100%. And it is /*a/ which I theorize preceded /*e,*o/ in what I
call the Pontic stage, which I believe preceded PIE. But I also believe the
non-phonemic status of the /*e,*o/ Ablaut suggests strongly that it
developed from a single predecessor. My best guess is that /*a/ developed
first into /*e/ in stress-accented positions while stress-unaccented /*a/
became /*0/. When the stress-accent was transferred from /*e/, the newly
stress-accented syllable had /*e/ while the (secondarily??) formerly
stress-accented syllable had /*o/. On this basis, I believe that no /*a/
existed in PIE except possibly as a result of a reduction of /*a:/ deriving
from a "laryngeal" + /*a/ in the Pontic (pre-PIE) stage.

<PRp>
>> 2) I believe with Benveniste that /*u/ and /*i/ are to be accounted as
>> avocalic instances of /*w/ and /*y/.

<SF>
> I can only accept this where there is good evidence of alternation with
> /*ue/ or /*eu/.  There are just too many cases where there *is* no such
> variation visible.  [The obvious examples are mostly inflectional ending
> and pronouns, but there are certainly others as well].

<PR>
Let us look at some of those examples. The strongest argument for this idea
is foreclosed to me because it involves the "N" word.

<SF>
> One *additional* reason for this is that languages without high vowels are
> exceeding rare in the world.  They are topologically marked - highly so.
> Typologically reasonable vowel systems include: /a/, /i/, /u/; /e/, /o/,
> /i/, /u/; and so on.  (There are a fair number of languages in which the
> high-back vowel is non-rounded, but there are reasons to reject that for
PIE).

<PR>
I think we must be careful about overvaluing typological facts. If the
Pontic stage of pre-PIE were the only language in all our knowledge to
employ a single vowel (even for a very short period), phonological rather
than typological considerations should influence more strongly. Typology,
generally, is a heuristic device, would you not agree?

<PRp>
>> 3) I also believe that all /*a/ and any long vowels are due to the presence
>> of "laryngeals", and that /*a(:)/ cannot exist in a syllable that did not
>> contain a "laryngeal" at some earlier stage.

<SF>
> I strongly suspect that this *is* the case.  [In a number of cases, I treat
> some words as later borrowings: words found only in Europe I do not treat
> as going back to PIE].

<PR>
So, we have found at least one common basis.

<SF>
> I am still struggling with the number and phonetic nature of the
> laryngeals.  In my own notes I generally, and tentatively, use H for H1, X
> for H2, and X^w for H3.   [I am fairly confident that the o-coloring
> laryngeal had to be labialized, since that fits so well with the PIE
> obstruents, and explains its phonetic effects so well].  If I were to
> accept the evidence for voicing in (some instances of) H3, I would probably
> want to add two more laryngeals, to make a more consistent set (that is I
> would tend towards both voiced and unvoiced variants of both H2 and H3).

<PR>
I fear a discussion of my ideas in this regard would take us too far afield.
I will save my comments on 'laryngeals' for another discussion but, if
anyone is interested, I have outlined my ideas in:

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/comparison-AFRASIAN-3_schwa.htm

and

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/comparison-AFRASIAN-3_laryngeal.htm

Pat

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