Re: Missing the sky

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 :))) ).

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.

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