zompist bboard

Would it be plausible to have a language in which: a pitch accent exists, two tense exist and the marked tense is marked by ablaut of the accented syllable/mora? If so, how could this derive diachronically?

It doesn't have to derive from something. Our (earliest) reconstruction of PIE started with something similar to that.

Thank you very much. Now, I have another question: in a pitch accent language, could something similar to blank verse exist, but with pitch instead of stress?

Sure. I was gonna mention Greek, but that uses syllable weight, not pitch, as the basis for its meters.

I don't know what you've read about ablaut so far, but if you haven't already looked it up, read on its development from PIE on (ē/ō ~ e/o ~ Ø > millenia of sound change > a whole bunch of series) to not get stupid and unreasonable results. Wikipedia should be helpful there.

Jipí wrote:Sure, look at Greek.

I don't know what you've read about ablaut so far, but if you haven't already looked it up, read on its development from PIE on (ē/ō ~ e/o ~ Ø > millenia of sound change > a whole bunch of series) to not get stupid and unreasonable results. Wikipedia should be helpful there.

What I've read about Greek (not very much) seems to suggest that meter was based on length, not tone.

ObsequiousNewt wrote:What I've read about Greek (not very much) seems to suggest that meter was based on length, not tone.

Yes, sorry, I corrected myself in a ninja edit already.

All right. Do you know any good books on PIE ablaut?

I'm not sure there are any books devoted solely to just that topic, but any decent handbook should cover the basics reasonably.

ObsequiousNewt wrote:It doesn't have to derive from something. Our (earliest) reconstruction of PIE started with something similar to that.

Well it does, but that something isn't always recoverable.