Re: Missing the sky

At 8:41 PM +0100 03/07/02, Christophe Grandsire wrote:
>En réponse à Joe Hill <joe@...>:
>
>>
>>  Well...they're both derived from the verb 'to shine'  Anyhow...do you
>>  know
>>  under which circumstances the e/o/zero shift takes place?
>>
>
>Well, there's that theory which gives o a stative meaning and e a process one,
>but the data is contradictory, and it seems the alternation is mainly
>grammatical. You just have to learn where it takes place! :)) This is one of
>the strange parts of the PIE reconstruction, since it reconstructs only one
>vowel (i and u are just the vocalic reflections of y and w, which like r, l, m
>and n can behave like syllabic peaks or like syllable boundaries) which can
>take the values "e", "o" or "-" (null), the alternation seemingly being
>grammatically and even dialectically based (since different IE languages show
>cognates that are explainable only if we suppose that in the same
>form, one had
>a "e" and the other a "o" for instance. I can't give you examples right now
>because I can't find them :(( ).
It has also been argued that the original distinction was prosodic in
nature with a full (stressed) vowel and two stages of reduction or
destressing (*e/*o/0).

As a phonologist, I find this explanation very appealing.

Dirk
--
Dirk Elzinga                  Dirk_Elzinga@byu.edu

Man deth swá hé byth thonne hé mót swá hé wile.
'A man does as he is when he can do what he wants.'

- Old English Proverb