Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE

[proto-language]

Dear Stanley and IEists:

 ----- Original Message -----
From: "Stanley Friesen" <sarima at friesen.net>
Sent: Friday, April 27, 2001 8:36 AM

<snip>

>> [PCR]

>> I have a feeling that you might wish to retract this opinion upon further
>> reflection. IE, as it has been reconstructed, is rife with purported
>> homonyms.  What originally distinguished these homonyms were glides, and
>> before that, in Nostratic, different vowel-qualities.

[SF]

> Why need they always be distinguished?  Real languages today have much
> homonymy.

[PCR]

Yes, but most frequently we can trace the course of degenerative development
that led to these homonyms.

[SF]

> But even then, what I see in the PIE vocabulary is many homonymous *roots*,
> but relative fewer homonymous *words*.  The main distinguishing factors
> were differences in suffixes and stem formants - and occasionally infixes.

[PCR]

First, there are no infixes in IE.

Second, for these 'roots' to be able to have maintained semantic integrity,
they must have been distinguishable in some fashion. The suffixes, etc. (better
root-extensions) are an attempt to continue distinctions that were lost with
the glides.

[PCRp]

>> All roots with an unmodified vowel in IE are Ce/o/-C.

>> Roots with Ca:C, Ce:C, Co:C are all the result of an internal 'laryngeal',
>> or, in the very rare case, the effect of former aspiration. CaC roots are
>> Ca:C roots that have lost length.

[SF]

> Long vowels in PIE seem to also come from other sorts of compensatory
> lengthening, such as degemmination of a following double consonant.

[PCR]

Quite right; and that should have been included in my statement.

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit ec
at ec hecc, vindgá meiði a netr allar nío, geiri vndaþr . . . a þeim
meiþi, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rótom renn." (Hávamál 138)