[tied] Re: The role of analogy, alliteration and sandhi in counting

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "alex" <alxmoeller@...> wrote:

> Richard Wordingham wrote:
> >
> > A problem with kW > W > p, assuming you meant the voiceless

labio-

> > velar approximant, is that the only relevant developments from

it I

> > can think of are [W] > [w], [W] > [f] and [W] > [p\] (bilabial
> > fricative). If you mean kW > w > p, well, w > p in one step is
> > unusual, and would be inconsistent with gW > w > b !
> >
> > Richard.
>
> yeab. but b and b are alophones arent they?

What did you intend to write here? I would say that b and b are
identical :)

> Let us take an example:
>
> gWo:us > Indic: gauh
> > Germ : kuh
> > Latin: bos
> > Greek: bous
> > Rom. : bou, bour
>
> My dictionary says there is no idea about what is there as basis

for the

> root, maybe the onomatopea made by the animal. If that is true,

then the

> onomatopea is begining with a labial (m/b) and it has perceped as
> "b/muuuuuhhhhhhh". That is how the cow does.

If there's any substance to the claim of onomatopeia, PIE *gWou- can
have Proto-Tai *Gwaai 'buffalo' and *Nwua 'cow, ox' (N = velar
nasal), both tone Class A, for company. Sumerian _gu_ 'cow, bovine'
(is that [Nu]?) belongs here, but might not be independent.

(A low-class Bangkok derivative of *Gwaai is /faai/, as opposed to
the standard Thai /kHwaai/, in case anyone's collecting examples of
changes of 'labiovelars' to labials. This relationship has been
known to affect Thais' pronunciation of English.)

? Then how is to explain the "g"

> in Indic and Germanic? One see they are bounded together in this

case a

> centum language (germanic) and a satem one(indic) and one has no

idea how to

> explain the velar "g"

Indic and, as far as I am aware, Greek, offer no difficulties. As
for Germanic, I think its a matter of the rare pre-Germanic *wow
smplifying to *u:. The apparent Germanic-Indic correspondence would
indicate PIE *g, not *gW.

The Latin form is irregular - the supposition is that it's from a
dialect where kw, gw > p,b. The regular representative would be
something like *vo:s.

> On another hand the *akWa is presented in Germanic space as "afa"

so

What are you talking about? What's the PIE root meant to mean, and
what language has 'afa'? If you mean *h2akwa: 'water', none of the
Germanic forms have /f/. Are you referring to an odd transcription
of Gothic _ahwa_?

Richard.