Peter:
>Yes, but also delightful. I am intrigued by your idea that H2 and H3 were
>one phoneme, and unrounded. I am sure you have a way of explaining the -o-
>colouring which led to the positing of H3 in the first place. How does it
>go?
Well, if I understand, what one would call "undeniable" instances of *H3 are
few and far between. No doubt, there appear to be many examples of *H3 but
are they really *H3, or are they in reality *H2 with o-grade? We know that
while Anatolian preserves laryngeals, even this branch doesn't preserve the
distinction of *H2 and *H3... so does it really exist or is it a throwback
from the pre-Hittite days of yore when laryngeals were first being
hypothesized without evidence to back it up?
For example, we have traditionally written *deH3- "to give" but we could
just
as well write *dox- (*doH2-). When zero-graded, it would yield *dx- which
should normally end up as **da- in many IE languages that lose laryngeals,
but analogical pressures that would associate this zero-grade with the
full-grade form *do:- would probably resist such a normal development since
if gone unchecked it would create unnecessary ablaut irregularities. Thus we
end up with an affected *do- that makes it seem as though we are dealing
with
the instance of an *H3 when it may not be the case.
Are there any suffixes with *H3? Are there any particles with *H3? Can we
be sure that *H3 in these instances cannot be interpreted as *H2 with
o-grade?
- gLeN
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