From: Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
Message: 5026
Date: 2000-12-12
>*h2 = [X] accounts for its [a]-colouring properties. Velar fricatives typically cause other vowel changes -- most often the retraction of front vowels, or "backing" diphthongisation, as in Old English "breaking". Uvulars are pronounced with the tongue body almost flat and they commonly condition vowel lowering; in my opinion they can legitimately be classified as [low] dorsals. This is in oposition to Chomsky and Halle's classic teaching. They define uvulars as [-high, -low], reserving the specification [-high, +low] for pharyngeals. I don't think the two classes contrast in such terms; the main difference is that uvulars are dorsal while pharyngeals involve a tongue-root articulation.That should be added to your "modest proposal".
>It's conceivable that PIE had a large number of fricatives; the question is only if there is sufficient ground for their reconstruction.I imagine it was "immediately" replaced by *k^ (phonetically [k]).
>
>Of course you're free to experiment with any number of Pre-PIE segments. But you'd better replace *q^ with something else. A palatalised uvular would require an impossible articulatory manoeuvre (pace some descriptions of Ubykh dorsals).
>PiotrDouglas Q.? (I really must get EIEC).
>
>P.S. I've just found that a three-way system involving *K, *Q, *KW is tentatively suggested by Adams in his EIEC article on PIE. He remarks en passant that it would make a more plausible alternative to *K^, *K, *KW. The idea may not be new, but our debate has certainly yielded some rather cogent arguments in support of such a system.