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

[Stanley Friesen]

At 09:07 PM 3/1/00 +0100, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote:
>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.

Which is one of the bases on which some IEists have reconstructed a pre-PIE
stage with some obscure conditioned variation that was reinterpreted as an
e/o variation when the true PIE accent pattern developed.

Now, personally, I have never found any of these systems particularly
convincing.  As you say, it makes little phonetic sense.

>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).

I am not sure this works either, unless one postulates extensive analogical
extensions of *o to places where it was not original.  Certainly it came to
be a marker of derivation, found in the root of many nouns derived from verbs.

The problem is that many of these schemes sound *reasonable*, but there are
always just enough exceptions to make one wonder.

>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(:)/.
...
>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.

Actually, I find this a very plausible scheme.  Probably the best I have
ever heard.

It is interesting to postulate that pre-PIE underwent the same sound change
as English did (compare my name to the independent noun: Stan vs. stone).

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