Re: [tied] pronunciation of laryngeals; connected text in PIE

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From: MCLSSAA2@...

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Friday, February 09, 2001 12:07 PM

Subject: [tied] pronunciation of laryngeals; connected text in PIE

> Is uvular /X/ a fricativised version of /q/?

 

Yes, the fricative counterpart of [q], with the same point of articulation.

> [of *h3] I think it was /3/, the ayin sound. In my mouth at least, it tends to o-flavor adjacent front vowels. If it was any other of the suggestions here, it would likely have presented in recorded languages as /w/ or a guttural more often. Compare the equation Latin `odi' = Greek `odussomai' = "I hate", Arabic /3adu:w/ = "enemy", all from root
/3-d-w/, and Greek `a(w)e:mai' = "of a wind, to blow". Arabic /Hawa:?/ = "air", all from root /H2-w-?/, if you believe in an old connection between PIE and Semitic.

 

... or just a plain velar fricative, [x], which may also have a "darkening" effect on adjacent front vowels. I don't favour the theory that *h3 was distinctively voiced. I did play the devil's advocate when debating its very existence on this list, though I'd normally conform to the standard notation in cited reconstructions. I just believe *h3 to be the most problematic of the "laryngeals".

> What is progress so far in people writing connected text in PIE? I have heard of Schleichter's fable about the sheep and the horses, but any hope of legally discussion of it here is grossly handcuffed by copyright rules.

 

Do you think so? Schleicher's original fable is almost 150 years old now. There are a number of modernised versions (see the Encyclopaedia of IE Culture) and here copyright laws would presumably apply. Proto-syntax is difficult to reconstruct because languages undergo drastic switches between syntactic types rather easily and even the oldest documented languages don't quite converge on a clearly recognisable prototype. Take any largish branch -- Romance, Slavic or whatever -- and you will find striking typological differences between their members and even more striking differences in diachronic comparison (e.g. between Latin and its descendants, or OCS and Modern Bulgarian). Syntax is also easily affected by areal influences (that is, non-genetic factors). There has been some progress in recent years as regards fixed phrases and what appear to be formulaic patterns in PIE oral poetry. It's Calvert Watkins's speciality.

 

Piotr