Piotr:
> Glen, I much prefer a true meaning clearly expressed in a >statement
>to one lurking behind a statement.
Indeed. In other words, I should avoid any messages like the one above. :) I
frankly don't know what you're alluding to but I've always strived to lay
out my thoughts clearly for public forum.
> It's certainly much better this way, though I still have doubts >about
>the possibility of a gap surviving for so long, especially in >word-medial
>position.
What can I do about it? It's not as if the traditional theory speaks volumes
on the lack of **b at all.
>In a language with a missing unmarked member of a consonant series >there
>will be a pressure to fill the gap, and a means of filling it >will be
>found more likely sooner than later.
Why are we talking about hypothetical situations that never happened? Along
with the fact that there is no initial *b in IE, there is no medial *b
either. It would be nice if it did exist, but we have to move on now.
There must have been a gap for "n" amount of years between the ejective
stage and the fortis stage. How long is too long for filling a gap? Sounds
like a glottochronological pseudo-arguement.
If you won $100 in bingo, would you be sad that you didn't win $1000? Here's
a theory that doesn't require superfluous ejectives in IE itself, it doesn't
require that IE is in Anatolia and yet keeps the new solution to the
typological and phonological problems that would otherwise be inheirant in
the traditionally reconstructed language. It even helps to better relate IE
to Uralic and Altaic.
I can't imagine Steppe having ejectives unless one wants to do the same
thing that has been done for IE, which is to claim that ejectives
conveniently evaporated in all languages. (Huh??)
Speaking of Altaic...
> I'm not an Altaicist (or a Nostraticist, for that matter), but >AFAIK
>Bomhardian Nostratic *t, *t', *d > Proto-Altaic *tH, *t, *d. The >lenition
>of aspirated stop (e.g. *p>f>x>h>zero, with different >positional reflexes)
>took place independently in various branches but >not in PA.
Erh, no. AFAIK or AFAITIK (as far as I thought I knew)? Apparently there are
two Bomhard's too.
I can't call myself an Altaicist either but Bomhard went for the
phonological system proposed by Poppe which he illustrates on p.78 in that
book of mine that I have read and that I have within my very hands:
p t c^ k
b d z^ g
s
m n n' -N-
-l- -l'-
-r- -r'-
y
a o u i e e" o" u" i"
a: o: u: i: e: e": o": u": i":
No aspirate voiceless stops. Sorry. This is the real correpondance he had in
mind:
Nostratic Altaic
*t *t
*t? *t-, *-d-
*d *d
Perhaps you got confused with Illich-Svitych? He was also a Nostraticist
before Bomhard but he's currently in the process of being reincarnated at
this time and is unavailable for comment. He and the much-alive Starostin
have this system:
p t c^ k
pH tH c^H kH
b d z^ g
s s^(?)
z(?)
m n n' -N-
-l- -l'-
-r- -r'-
-w- -y-
i e a" u" o" i" u o a
What's with the sibilant overkill?
Frankly, as much as Russians are cool, I'm not feeling kosher with this
system and the fact that Starostin uses it for some of his very farflung
reconstructions isn't selling it for me (Check out his website under Altaic
and look at the entry for "three", yikes!), unless there are two
Starostin's. Between IS and Star., I don't particularly delight in the
phonetic plausibility of their reconstructions.
Regardless of what system you're using, an *s is an *s. Therefore *s will
still correlate with IE *t and with Steppe *t... and Nostratic *t. I expect
all voiceless stops (aside from *kW) had softened to fricatives or *h/null
in pre-Altaic. The aspiration contrast you mention is something within
Altaic itself it would seem.
BTW, liquids aren't initial in Altaic and because of this, Bomhard draws a
blank in his correspondances in re of Nostratic *l- and *r-.
Chuckle, chuckle. What a silly goof he is. The answer's obvious, duh!
- gLeN
Thoughts never burned anyone's house down.
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