From: Glen Gordon
Message: 9997
Date: 2001-10-05
>From: "Glen Gordon" <glengordon01@...>_________________________________________________________________
>Reply-To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
>To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
>Subject: Re: [tied] Mid IE Phonology
>Date: Thu, 04 Oct 2001 22:58:57
>
>Marc V:
> > >Thanks, Glen! Very interesting. This looks much more like a real
> > >language than the traditional phonological reconstructions (eg,
> > >Beekes).
> >
> >(I meant a/?vs o/e, and t/t:/d vs t/d/dh etc.)
>
>Oh. Right. Well, it would seem that IE had *a as well, at least next to
>laryngeals. As for t/d/dh, I'm not sure about how Piotr feels but, the odd
>contrast may have been somewhat short lived (ending up t/th/d/dh in
>Sanskrit, th/t/d in Germanic, etc).
>
>The fortis stops *[t:, k:] for Mid IE are a way of acknowledging the
>typological oddity of a missing **b (which would derive from **p: and
>ultimately from **p? if it had existed) without accepting outright the
>existence of ejectives in IE itself. Rather, the ejective stage of IE
>exists
>but is pushed into the remote past where it belongs.
>
> >Thanks again for the examples (very interesting - as always :-)). Sorry I
> >was vague. I was thinking of examples comparing the traditional
> >phonol.reconstructions (eg, p, t, k, kW) with yours (p, t, tW, k, kW).
>
>Well, I reconstruct *tW for Steppe, IndoTyrrhenian, Old IE and Mid IE but
>*not* for Late IE. For some reason, labiodentals don't seem to be treated
>as
>single phonemes in Late IE even though I imagine they must have existed
>once (Mid IE *sWekse "six", *t:Waxe "two" > *sweks, *dwo:u).
>
>For instance, I reconstruct Steppe *kut:u for "five" (yes, "five", not
>"four" as in IndoTyrrhenian). I realise now that Steppe *i and *u are
>treated
>differently in IndoTyrrhenian such that *i > *� and *u > *a (I used to
>think
>that both *i and *u became *� but this new rule better explains the origins
>of *e/*o ablaut in verb roots).
>
>Hence, we obtain IndoT *kWat:Wa "four" (with residual labialisation and a
>bit
>of a semantic shift). This becomes Tyrrhenian *xotta and Old IE *kW�tWe-n
>(with
>the inanimate *n-suffix), later *kWetw�res with *-es plural and predictable
>accent shift).
>
>So from this, we can see that labiodentals are the result of Steppe
>plain dentals in the environment of *u. However, by late IE instances of
>*tW
>or *sW end up *tw and *sw respectively and only labiovelars are retained
>as single phonemes. Does that make any sense? I'm not sure why this is but
>I'm
>not a real linguist anyway :)
>
> >Are there extant languages with a comparable phonology?
>
>NorthWest Caucasian languages... but I suspect that early IE was heavily
>affected by them. Hmm, I can't think of any languages lacking palatal
>consonants but having labial consonants off hand, if that's what you are
>wanting. Although come to think of it, there is French /ma/ [ma] versus
>/moi/ [mwa] without a *[mja] or /pas/ [pa] versus /poid/ [pwa] without any
>*[pja] afaik. I'll have to think more on that.
>
> >Perhaps a stupid question, but if there were forms like tW-/kW-, could
> >there also have been forms like ty-/ky-?
>
>If I correctly understand, Miguel thinks so. However, I don't think that
>palatalisation was a factor in early stages of IE. I like Piotr's
>explanation
>of satemisation in terms of uvularisation very much (which was designed to
>solve typological problems with the predominance of a marked and supposedly
>palatal *k^) and it works well with a centralized vowel system of *[&, a]
>where *a is the uvularizing factor. Hence *k^ is really plain *k (implying
>neighbouring *e in Mid IE), and *k is uvular (implying a nearby *a in Mid
>IE).
>
>It makes sense then that we should find *k^ in consonant clusters... This
>is because consonant clusters like *k^C- imply earlier *k^eC-. Due to my
>new-found rule that only *e (schwa) can occur in unstressed positions, this
>means that *k could never be uvularized here because this would require an
>unstressed *a (which doesn't exist!!). Hence *k^wo:n < *kewane-se "dog",
>*g^lo:us < *k:elaxwe-se "sis' hub" and more obscurely *ok^to:u < *ak^twa: <
>*kWetWaxe "eight".
>
>So in all, we can do away with palatalisation. I severely doubt that it
>was significant in a language lacking front or high vowels anyways.
>
>
>
>Now to some interesting stuff...
>--------------------------------
>But now this latter word *kWetWaxe "eight" gets me on a new tangent... What
>if the development of this numeral can help solve our "bird" problem?
>
>Is it possible that the euphonic prothetic *a- seen in the intermediate
>form *ak^twa: was part of a larger phenomenon in Early Late IE? Could it
>be that an earlier *xewei "bird" begat a new word *xewei�ne "egg" through
>the use of a thematic genitive *-ane (> *-om). From there, after the
>reduction of unstressed schwas, we would obtain *xwyan...
>
>Now those are alotta consonants to pronounce in one syllable! Gee, it would
>seem easier to pronounce them if we had a prothetic vowel at our
>disposal...
>like *a perhaps... That would produce *axwy�n, later *oxwy�n in Early IE.
>
>Of course, by this point we know where things are going since *oxwy�n
>becomes
>*�xwyon due to the new acrostatic accent of thematic nouns established
>during
>this time period, and the genitive *-on becomes *-om (affected by
>accusative
>*-m as well as preceding labial *o).
>
>Tada! So what do we get? Well, now we have *oxwyom (> *o:wyom... very
>smooth!)
>and we also end up with *TWO*, count 'em, *TWO* examples of a prothetic *a
>used to intervene in cases of extreme initial clustering in Late Mid to
>Early Late IE (c.5000 BCE). Clevah! Now, I gotta wonder how many other
>examples there may be of this *a-... ??
>
>Say, Piotr... Can you list those other examples of these supposed *Ho-
>compounds? I'm agettin' suspicious.
>
>-------------------------------------------------
> Glen Gordon
> Webdeveloper
>
> home: http://glen_gordon.tripod.com
> email: glengordon01@...
> ph: (604)904.0320
>-------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
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