A self-indulgent trip down memory lane

Rasmussen's O-Fix theory has been on my mind lately as I finally am ironing out a pdf detailing the changes that I think have occurred in Pre-IE. I'll offer that pdf shortly and will be making updates on it in the future. In the meanwhile, I finally found an old post of mine, back in my more impetuous days, where I first offered my reinterpretation of Rasmussen's theory in order to make the sound changes feel more natural to me by invoking more commonplace linguistic processes and incorporating Allan Bomhard's plausible thoughts on Pre-IE. Enjoy:

Cybalist (Yahoogroups), "a-Epenthesis: hybrid proposal" (Feb 14 2004)

Please be warned that while the basic idea remains, a few details of my proposal have changed over the years as I adapted to new facts.

Rasmussen's consonantal *o and laryngeal deletion

Here's a link to Jens Rasmussen's theory, the Consonant Infix Theory: Selected Papers on Indo-European Linguistics: With a Section on Comparative Eskimo Linguistics (1991). Essentially, Rasmussen proposes that there is an underlying Pre-IE uvular fricative /ʁ/ which has produced instances of *o in words that he deems should not have had this vocalism. I have strong doubts about his interpretation of the data but the patterns he analysed seem to be real nonetheless and require explanation.

Overall, the thing that I object to here is the less-than-plausible sound changes that he claims to have occurred. I like theories to be optimally efficient and maximally plausible however I'm unaware as yet of any realworld examples or credible reasons behind the linguistic processes that are invoked. This is an example of his version of Pre-IE sound changes:

*h₃lOig-é'- > *lOigé'- > *loig-ó-s

I want to talk more on this but essentially my reinterpretation of this is that the "consonant" that Rasmussen perceives was never a phoneme at all but rather the absence of one. So in other words, I reinterpret the above to the following:

MIE *hʷalaig̰ása
> *hʷᵊlᵊig̰ásᵊ (Reduction)
> *lᵊig̰ásᵊ (Laryngeal Deletion)
> *laig̰ásᵊ (a-Epenthesis)
> *laig̰ás (Syncope)
> PIE *loigós

By changing things like this, we can explain an apparent addition of *o (from earlier unstressed *a) as the simple result of phonotactic readjustment during the stage when Reduction (i.e. the reduction of most unstressed schwas to supershort schwas) happened. Here, a-Epenthesis is caused when a resulting onset of CCC- (i.e. **lyg̰-) threatens to rear its awkward head during Syncope. So before Syncope can kick in, *a is inserted into the first available position from the lefthand side of the word in order to optimize syllabics and avoid this icky clustering. Clever, no? I thought so. [Glen pats himself on the back.] The Laryngeal Deletion rule preceding a-Epenthesis is yet another phonotactically motivated rule to avoid complex clusters which Rasmussen also explains was first discovered by Monsieur de Saussure. And so far, I've found little reason to think otherwise but this account seems to make more sense to me than what Rasmussen has published.

Unlike a completely assumed uvular-fricative-turned-vowel, I figure that this idea would treat the attested evidence more as it is and gives it linguistic motivations that are far better attested in other languages in the world. I think I might talk about this further later^[1] but enjoy these brief thoughts for now. As always, you're all welcome to share your constructive criticisms to what I've suggested because maybe I've overlooked something.


NOTES
^[1] This link may be of further interest concerning Rasmussen's theories: click here.