Re: A New language tree

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:

> Brian M. Scott wrote:
>
> > I was especially amused by the author's absurd claim that
> > labio-velars are unpronounceable. More important, he
> > clearly has no understanding of how science is conducted.
>
> Note the general scheme of his phonetic arguments: I, Kazanas, have
> tried to pronounce X and failed. Ergo, X is unpronounceable.
>
> Piotr

The labiovelars in IE are contrasted against the combination of
phonemes kw*. However, the acoustic difference between the labiovelars
and this combination is very small. One may wonder if the labivelars
had some additional properties than just the lip rounding that made
them more acoustically different from kw*.