Re: Missing the sky

Christophe 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 :(( ).
>
> > oh, and H2 is the right laryngeal (probably pronounced /x/- which would
> > make
> > pH2ter /pxter/
> >
>
>Nice cluster isn't it? :)) This one gave short a in Latin and Greek (pater)
>but
>short i in Sanskrit (pitar). Is it possible for /x/ to become that? I
>wonder by
>which sound changes it evolved that way... No wonder why people can't agree
>on
>the phonetic content of the laryngeals (they already can't agree on their
>number, so :))) ).
Why doesn't anybody seem to believe in the "schwa indogermanicus" any
longer? Even tho' initial [pxt-] would probably delight a Georgian,  doesn't
the fact that a vowel turns up in all daughter languages sort of suggest
that there were one there right from the start?

                                  Andreas (who's not an IEist)

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