Re: [tied] PIE dorsals

Hey, Miguel, I was just going to propose exactly the same solution and you beat me to it. Once upon a time, I used to believe in three dorsal series, but the frequency argument made me reject the idea that *K was the unmarked velar. Brugmann's *K^ is the only serious candidate for the status of "basic velar", and any typologically plausible reconstruction shoud respect this fact. If we assume that the relatively rare Brugmannian *K is really *Q, it immediately becomes clear why *a is so often found next to it, especially, but not exclusively, in Latin. To be sure, Schrijver's examples must be analysed with due caution. I've found a few further exceptions both ways, e.g. *kerd-ah2- 'excrements' (with *k in Iranian) > Latin -cerda 'dung' (with animal names: muscerda, etc.), or *k^ed- 'fall' > Latin cado (Skt. s'ad-, Arm. c'acnum), though it's possible that some *k^-words had an original *a (*k^aso- 'hare' is surely one of them, cf. Latin ca:nus 'grey-haired').

Yes, *Q is all right as far as I'm concerned (NOT G&I's *q, but [Q] = Brugmann's *K).

Piotr

----- Original Message -----
From: Miguel Carrasquer Vidal

To: cybalist@egroups.com

Sent: Saturday, December 09, 2000 10:23 PM

Subject: Re: [tied] PIE dorsals

The present discussion has made me reconsider my position in at least one way. I still think *K differing from *K^ is unavoidable in PIE, and I still believe that there is enough interesting evidence to suggest a three-way split into plain, palatalized and labio-velarized consonants at some stage of pre-PIE, which squares well with the (near) absence of the vowels *i and *u (except as zero-grade variants of *y and *w) in PIE. However, I had only considered the mere existence of *K, *K^ and *Kw, not their relative frequency. In that respect, it is clear that *K^ is just too frequent to be merely the palatalized variant of *K. And Piotr's argument that (if the *K^'s had been palatalized phonemes) we would expect to find solutions involving *Ky besides the satem assibilation, is also food for thought. The only resolution of this dilemma that occurs to me is the following (and it involves a new set of pre-PIE consonants, I'm afraid): the contrast was between velar **K and post-velar (uvular) **Q. When palatalized, both series gave *K^, and when labialized, both gave *Kw, but the bulk of them gave *K^ when originally velar, *K when originally post-velar. This would also explain why two velars/dorsals are allowed in one PIE root, and it explains the relative infrequency of *K (post-velar phonemes are more marked than velar ones, and the number of post-velars had further been reduced by their development into laryngeals under certain unclear circumstances: e.g. *qost(H)- ~ *h2ost(H)- "bone", *qu@... ~ *h2u@... "steam", cf. the development OGeo. /q/ > Geo. /x/). In the satem languages, the velar/post-velar opposition was transformed into a palatal/velar one, in the centum languages both series eventually merged (apart from possible effects on a following vowel as suggested by Peter Schrijver for Latin).