PhoeniX’s blog

e and o grades in verb, and their origin.

2008-07-04T20:04:53Z

One might not realise it, but typologically the Indo-European verb is actually incredibly strange. Depending on your reconstruction the Aspect is marked in two or three ways, while actually marking it once would be enough and is enough in the majo...

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

No phonotactic *e?

2008-05-31T14:12:57Z

A while ago I posited the idea that the paradigm for 'foot' in Indo-European might have a phonotactic schwa insertion. Glen Gordon spook out against this, saying it was paradigmatic levelling rather than a phonotactic constraint. I didn't want to ...

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Not present heightening after all?

2008-05-16T20:30:39Z

Last post I started telling you about how the present seemed to be some kind of vowel heightening form the perfect; due to its type of suffixes. In retrospect I consider this to be very wrong. I sometimes have days I try to merge everything with e...

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Present vowel heightening

2008-05-09T23:01:23Z

One of the greatest problems with Indo-European, is that the common reconstruction of the language's phonology is typologically unlikely to impossible. Lately I've been focussing on the vocalic system. The general idea is that there were two or ...

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Prenasalised Iⁿdo-european?

2008-04-25T21:04:38Z

For my job I have to work through an enormous amount of Journals, collecting every single article I can find that may be relevant to the Etymological dictionary of Greek. After collecting them I put them into a database and pass them on to R.S.P. ...

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

A strange *i/u alternation

2008-04-08T14:29:29Z

What I've always found fascinating about Indo-European is that there seems to be many isoglosses that alternate certain vowels. *e/o alternations in, for example the genitive *-es/-os. Then there's the *i/e alternation in reduplications. Where we ...

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

The Unification of Genitives!

2008-03-31T23:04:07Z

For some time I've been wondering about the Indo-European genitive forms; Which anyone who reads my blog with any regularity has surely noticed. As some of you may know, Indo-European has a different genitive form the nominal inflection than for ...

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Language and Evolution

2008-03-05T20:37:32Z

It's been quite fashionable to equate language change and evolution lately. In many ways language can be described as a living 'being', depending on your definition of life of course. Personally though; I feel that this idea is fundamentally flaw...

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Genitives in the Future

2008-02-28T17:47:10Z

A while ago I quite quickly accepted the possibility of a contraction of Homeric Greek genitive ending -οιο to -ου, as seen in the most dialects. Now I'd like to argue this once again! First of all, this is not the commonly expected contraction o...

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Delving into the -lf of wolf.

2008-02-17T19:52:38Z

About a week ago, I was telling my mother about that mysterious word *ulkʷos and its odd reflexes in the Indo-European languages in general, and Germanic languages especially. She kindly pointed out to me that there aren't that many words in Dutc...

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

PhoeniX’s blog

*e and *o grades in verb, and their origin.

No phonotactic *e?

Not present heightening after all?

Present vowel heightening

Prenasalised Iⁿdo-european?

A strange *i/u alternation

The Unification of Genitives!

Language and Evolution

Genitives in the Future

Delving into the -lf of wolf.

e and o grades in verb, and their origin.