Etherman:
>I'm wearing flame retardant underwear in anticipation of Glen's
>reply :)
Am I really so frightening? Delightful! >:) My plan has worked.
>We always hear that PIE initial *b is rare but I don't quite see
>the basis for it.
The basis for it is the data from attested daughter languages.
Any examples of a supposed IE *b appear to always be iffy.
Sometimes these *b-reconstructions are specific to a certain
branch (and therefore hard to establish as bonified IE), they
are imitative of sounds, or they are shown to be *bH in the
end (such as those etyma affected by Grassman's Law).
>So what statistical basis do people have for saying that initial
>*b is rare?
I believe your objection appears to be that /b/ is a common sound
in world languages, in which case, you're correct. In fact we
would _expect_ *b in IE... yet it doesn't appear to exist based
on the data.
With an absence of **b, the IE sound system is very unusual. This
is why some propose the Glottalic Theory, claiming that *d and *g
are ejectives *t? and *k? (pronounced with an accompanying glottal
stop), as we would find in Kartvelian languages like Georgian.
This would then explain why **b, or rather **p?, is lacking since
labial ejectives are often the first to disappear in languages.
In my honest opinion, I think that IE did not have ejectives and
it looks as though everything points to *d and *g having been
voiced. However, I've proposed an alternative that combines both
ideas together. To me, *d and *g were originally (in the remote
past) *t? and *k?. This allows us to keep the glottalic
explanation of a lack of *b, since it was earlier *p?.
The ejectives would have first eroded to *t: and *k:, perhaps
being spoken as unaspirated [t] and [k]. Then, they would become
voiced *d and *g in a later stage. Throughout, the absence of the
correlating labial stop would remain constant until the fracturing
of IE when various dialects would adopt their own *b's.
- gLeN
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