--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Etherman23 <etherman23@...>"
<etherman23@...> wrote:
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Daniel J. Milton
<dmilt1896@...>"
> <dmilt1896@...> wrote:
> > While waiting for a more expert reply, here's my observation:
> > Pokorny does list 30 *b- out of 2222, but they seem an unusually
> > weak group,with doubtful, poorly attested, and nursery
onomatopoiea
> > entries. Cal Watkins' list in the American Heritage Dictionary,
> > which just includes roots that have derivatives in English, lists
> > two -- *bak "staff" and *bel "strong" -- vs. 35 for *bh-.
>
> The thing that I find interesting is that *bh- seems way too
common.
> IIRC it's even more common than *p-. For other stops the unvoiced
> sound is much more common than the voiced aspirate.
>
The glottalic theory sees the standard PIE contrast */t/ ~ */d/ ~
*/dH/ realised as [t] ~ [t?] ~ [d]. (No sophistry here; I did
consider citing the standard reconstructions in angle brackets, as
though PIE were a written language.) Now, there are languages in
which ejectives and implosives form a single series - implosive at
the front and ejective at the back. Another feature is that /b/ can
have a tendency to be implosive. So, perhaps in isolation, the
constrast [p] ~ [p?] ~ [b] collapsed as [p?] > [?p] > [?b] and then
[?b] and [b] merged, as */bH/. This may explain the high frequency
of PIE */bH/. Presumably the voiced stops became breathy ([d] > [dH]
etc.) before the other consonants 'deglottalised'.
There is one minor problem with this. While the natural place for a
gap in an ejectives series is at the front (missing [p?]), the
natural gap for an implosive series is at the back (typically missing
[?g]). The same applies to preglottalised series (to which notations
such as [?b] properly belong), e.g. Proto-Tai and a few Tai
dialects. (It isn't simply a matter of voicing or its lack - the
usual gap in a prenasalised series is at the front, not the back.)
Richard.