>>Here is a modest phonological proposal concerning PIE dorsals:
>
>Yes, that would seem to work.
Strange as it may seem, even _I_ seem to like it for reasons of my own. I
was shaking my head at Piotr's suggestion wondering what he had been
drinking until my thickheaded brain considered for a moment how my own
theory would be different if he were right and then I saw a light...
>I miss some additional argumentation as to why *h2 would necessarily
>have to be uvular ([+low]). Isn't it conceivable that it was velar
>[x], or even, god help us, that both [x] and [X] existed (*h2a and
>*h2b ?).
I don't think that *x should be part of the front/low/rounded scheme in the
way that you suggest, Piotr. I would say that *x and *xW definitely did
exist at some point in IE prehistory if not within protoIE itself. If so we
should have the following instead:
i-coloured a-coloured u-coloured
(front) (low) (rounded)
*k *q *kW
*x zero *xW
Now, what is gLeNny up to? What is that "zero" supposed to mean? To begin
with, I would say that *x was already uvular as opposed to an originally
_velar_ *k. If so, we can't "lower" a uvular much more, can we? One would
speculate that it may have just lowered itself "to death" in those
instances. I wonder if that would clinch the idea that the dual -o:u (where
Piotr suggests that it derives from *-o:) is simply an underlying MidIE
*-a-xe (*-xe being the ubiquitous collective suffix and *-a- being the end
of a thematic root like in *okto:u "eight" < *(e)ktwa: < *ktwax <
*kWetW�-xe, as opposed to *kW�tWa-n "four").
Actually, it also might explain something I've been noticing about expected
laryngeals (predicted by other Nostratic languages) strangely disappearing
in IE as in the case of *kwo:n- where *w replaces what would be a laryngeal
(or that word for "sister's husband"... *glo:us, was it?). Bomhard runs
smack into this problem in his own reconstruction for the canine but can't
quite account for it satisfactorily.
I find it wonderfully delightful that a subsequent Mid IE *q would always
appear to pop up around the "low" *a (mostly turned to *o in Late IE).
Again, it's the vowels causing this but with a twist.
And it solves the satemisation problem I've been having. I had trouble
pin-pointing when palatalisation would have occurred and I was arriving at a
strange sort of paradox where palatalisation was necessary during a "range"
of sound changes rather than a single moment. Ick. This solves it. Hooray!
Thanks alot, Piotr! It would appear therefore that "satemisation" (aka
"uvularisation") had started at a very early date, 5000 BCE or earlier
(prior to the guna/zero alternation caused by stress accent). Palatalisation
is now a later modification which I have no date for whatsoever but may
have been sometime around 4500 BCE or so? Just a guess.
Finally, there would then be motivation for *x and *xW to merge since the
laryngeals are uvular already. Having no middle phoneme, the two laryngeals
may have felt compelled to scoot on down and join the other uvulars in the
uvular column. I guess it was a "hip" thing for IE phonemes to join the
uvular column cuz the front and rounded phonemes were totally square,
daddy-oh. :)
>I also reserve the right to have pre-PIE **q^ (> *k^) and **qw (>
>*kw), for reasons of symmetry and because of two cute self-discovered
>Nostratic etymologies which I'm reluctant to let go of (PIE *g^hesr-
>"hand", PSem *3as'r- "10", PKartv. *qe(l)- (Svan pl. q�l-�r-) "hand,
>arm"; and PIE *g^en(d)h1u- "chin, jaw, cheek", PKartv. *Ga(:)c'.w-
>"cheek", *Ga(n)c^.- "jaw"), both with (palato-)velars in PIE for the
>expected uvular.
Make a copyright if you want - I'm sure no one will steal your idea. Your
Nostratic etymology is very outdated and sloppy, as well as incompatible
with anything vaguely credible that has been done within the last quarter of
the 20th century. It certainly doesn't follow the usual Nostratic
correspondances. You have parentheses strewn everywhere and I'm not
impressed. Who's giving you these correspondances? This looks like the work
of Illich-Svytich. He's been dead for some time now. It's time to move on.
I don't see how you can seriously believe that PIE *gh = Semitic *3 nor can
I see how you can support the added equation with Kartvelian *q without
weaving more fantastical stories together. Kartvelian *q is more likely to
simply be an attestation of Nostratic *k next to *u (but even so,
Nostraticists usually reconstruct *q to account for it). Semitic *3 is from
Nostratic *x next to *u (PIE *xW). Bomhard thinks that Semitic ayin
represents Nostratic ayin but I find these Nostratic phonologies to be
misleadingly large and complex to trick the unquestioning masses. ("Keep it
simple, stupid!") However, I take Bomhard's view that Semitic "ayins" should
be absent in Kartvelian and Sumerian.
The end.
- gLeN
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