>Why indeed? It all depends on one's needs. If you want to talk about
>run-of-the-mill IE comparative linguistics, all you'll ever need will
>be three laryngeals (h1, h2, h3). [...] If, however, your needs extend to
>the internal or external
>reconstruction of pre-PIE or somesuch (Proto-Nostratic, for instance),
>all options are open again, and the number can go down or up. One
>might want to derive all three laryngeals from a single *H, for
>instance h1 < Hy, h2 < H, h3 < Hw. Or one might want to see certain
>laryngeals as mergers of earlier independent phonemes, e.g. /?/ + /h/
> > *h1, /x/ + /G/ > *h2. Or one might want to do a combination of
>both. If there is a need to do so.
Well, assuming your need is not to complicate and is to arrive at the most
logical and simplest conclusion possible, I will tell you my thoughts.
(Hooray! Glen is going to share with us his stupid, poopoo IndoTyrrhenian
theory again. Why won't he fly off a bridge, already???...)
I have arrived at the view that [*H1, *H2 and *H3] are respectively [*?, *x,
*xW]. *H2 and *H3 are therefore the same phoneme, one being plain, the other
being labial (just as with the velars: *k vs. *kW). Thus we could say in a
manner of speaking that there are only two types of laryngeals, inaspirate
and aspirate. The labial varieties of both the velar and laryngeal set are
from the same thing - a collapse of the vowel system in IndoTyrrhenian
between 9000 and 7000 BCE.
The vowels *i and *u in closed syllables (CVC) or in unstressed words (such
as the oblique pronouns *mu => IE *me) were reduced to schwa, written as *e
for IndoTyr, Early IE and Mid IE. The labial quality of the original *u
lingered, however, and had been carried over to neighbouring velars or
laryngeals within the syllable.
Thus a ProtoSteppe syllable like *ki simply became IndoTyrrhenian *ke, but
ProtoSteppe *ku became IndoTyrrhenian *kWe. Similarly, *xi => *xe and *xuC
=> *xWeC(W). Of course, the palatalisation of IE *k and the Satem dialects
could not have occured until the Late IE period (no earlier than 4500 BCE I
think) when the earlier mid central schwa was differentiated into *e (mid
front) and *o (mid back). Velar palatalisation occured only adjacent to Late
IE front vowels *a, *e & *i.
If there was originally more than one laryngeal in Nostratic (as if often
posited for Nostratic), it is certain to me that they were lost at least
10,000 years ago in IE's lineage.
Miguel's pre-IE vision consisting of **-aty, **-atw, yada, yada, is overly
mechanical and unnecessarily complex for a credible human language. In my
hypothesis, palatalisation need only be recent (within Late IE) and
labialisation need only occur with a select group of phonemes (velars,
laryngeals and, possibly maybe, dental stops). But then, it all depends on
your needs... :)
- gLeN
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