On 2008-04-15 15:38, fournet.arnaud wrote:
> Why then did you choose to reconstruct H1albh "white"
> on the sole basic of Anatolian,
> when all the rest of PIE points at H2 ?
Because *h2 is regularly preserved in Anatolian in this position, while
*h1 is not. This has nothing to do with Anatolian being conservative or
otherwise. "All the rest" doesn't point to *h2. Only the A-timbre of the
vowel would suggests *h2 as the simplest choice if there were no other
evidence, but Anatolian _does_ provide such "other evidence", so I
respect it. As PIE "fundamental" *a (of non-laryngeal origin) is
possible, *h1a- is possible as well and sometimes may turn out to be the
best reconstruction (I stress the fact that it's a reconstruction, i.e.
a working hypothesis which may well be falsified one day, but I try to
make it optimal in the light of available evidence).
Piotr