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Re: Missing the sky

From:Dirk Elzinga <dirk_elzinga@...>
Date:Thursday, March 7, 2002, 20:11
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