Zompist Bboard Again

Did this ever amount to anything? Prokosch mentions it a lot, but all I can find out is that it was something postulated to break up awkward consonnat clusters.

alice wrote: ↑Sun Dec 13, 2020 12:52 pm Did this ever amount to anything? Prokosch mentions it a lot, but all I can find out is that it was something postulated to break up awkward consonnat clusters.

I don't know. Some handbooks (e.g., Fortson) don't even mention it at all, so it is probably just an outdated hypothesis.

I don't think it's outdated. Gasiorowski appeals to schwa secundum to explain Latin quattuor < *kʷətwṓr (similarly quadru- < *kʷətwr̥- or *kʷətru-); this could possibly also be used for Albanian katër, since PIE *e regularly becomes je ~ ie, although I don't know off the top of my head how stress developed in Albanian.

I have to correct myself: Fortson does mention it, though only briefly (giving the *k^wtwor- example), and does not discuss it any further.

OTOH, this claims that schwa secundum has been eliminated.

Checking Orel, it seems that, although IE *e sometimes > ja ~ a, this can't be the case for "four" - *e > ja is sporadic and possibly irregular, but ja > a after c ç q gj Cl Cr and before PAlb. *ts *dz *nt *nd *mb... except this presumably predates the fronting of the palatovelars to alveolar affricates (if that's what they ever were - I don't know why he reconstructs them except as the most likely intermediate), because *ja is maintained (i.e. not > a) before *Ḱs > PAlb. *TS.

It's arguably simpler to call it irregular reduction, although we technically could reconstruct a rare *ə giving Lat. and Alb. a. Are there other cases?

(Orel also reconstructs PIE *ə, but this seems to actually be a syllabic laryngeal.)

Nortaneous wrote: ↑Sun Dec 13, 2020 7:36 pm (Orel also reconstructs PIE *ə, but this seems to actually be a syllabic laryngeal.)

That schwa has been reconstructed much earlier than schwa secundum, and is the reason why the latter is called "schwa secundum".

Trying to finally slog through Malzahn 2010...

Finally, PIE schwa secundum also resulted in that [Early Proto-Tocharian non-palatalizing] *ä, to judge from *kätna- = Gk. skidna- from PIE *(s)kₔdneH-.