PIE e/o Ablaut

[Vidhyanath Rao]

Patrick C. Ryan <proto-language at email.msn.com> wrote:

> Look at Old Indian. There, any vowel other than [a] is clearly a
> combination of [a] + [y], [w], or [H] ) or [a] of we consider vrddhi.

When JER suggested Sanskrit as an ``almost'' example several months ago,
I looked for exceptions. I gave up because it is hard to do searches
like these without a comprehensive word list (one exists, but I don't
have access to it). But I am doubtful because pairs of type viyukta
(unyoked) and vyukta (vi + (vac+ta), explained) must have existed even
if I am unable to point to them on demand in RV.

We can try to use accent to distinguish them, but then we run into the
problem of how vyukta was actually pronounced (it seemed to have varied
over time and space).

There is a good reason why searches for universals and universal
tendencies is done on living languages.