Okay, I've been thinking about Piotr's two-laryngeal idea. If I were to
superficially accept it, it would appear to be workable within the context
of my presence ideas on previous stages of IE. The consequence would be that
in ProtoSteppe both *xiC and *xuC become IndoTyr *xeC (assuming that C is
not a velar because then *xuk > *xekW/*xokW while *xik > *xek^/*xok). So, I
guess that ProtoSteppe *xu "sheep" > IndoTyrrhenian *xeu... Oh-oh. How do
get from *xeu- to postlaryngeal *ow-?? Via an o-grade *xou-?? Why the
motivation for o-grade here? Arrrrgghhhhh....
Come to think of it. I like the three-laryngeal idea better. This way *xu
becomes IndoTyr *xWeu > IndoE *xWewis > *owis... and everything's
happy-happy. Can't be sure but I think that this theory would sabotage my
handsome explanation of the late origins of *e/*o ablaut. IE *o is supposed
to be caused partly by the lack of accentuation on earlier *e, partly by
surrounding labial phonemes (*m, *w, *xW), and partly by late grammatical
innovations. This occurs between approximately 5000 and 4000 BCE (Late IE).
I don't know how all this could be rearranged feasibly to take into account
a two-laryngeal system. Everything would be from scratch again and that's
just yucky. Two thumbs down for the two-laryngeal theory.
- gLeN
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download :
http://explorer.msn.com