Re: Laryngeals: arguments from typology?

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "G&P" <G.and.P@...> wrote:

>>> However, a schwa seems just as plausible as a laryngeal, unless
>>> Anatolian shows otherwise.

>> That idea presumably lies behind Pokorny's use of a schwa in so
>> many of these words. But it doesn't explain all the effects we see -
>> hiatus for example.

> Which hiatus are you referring to?

Presumably the forms in Vedic Sanskrit and the earliest Avestan
hymns that have to be scanned with an extra syllable, like the
word for 'wind': Skt. <vá:ta->, but earlier trisyllabic <vaata->.

> (I'm sorry to be asking what may be a basic question.) Why is it
> necessary to assume that this hiatus was caused by the same
> phenomenon that causes the lengthening in <su:nara-> and the
> initial vowel of <ane:r>?

I don't know that it's *necessary*, but it's certainly the parsimonious
explanation.

Brian