Miguel:
>I still have no idea what you mean by fortis.
"Fortis stops" simply refer to the ancestral forms of IE plain
voiced stops like *d which, according to Bomhardian thought,
originate from Nostratic ejectives. Unlike Bomhard, I believe
there was a transition between Nostratic *t? and Indo-European *d.
That transition was *t:, a "fortis" stop.
>If *d was "fortis", was that in opposition to *dh or *t or both?
Since both *t and *t: (> *d) were unvoiced, they oppose each other
by only one quality. Thus they are lenis and fortis voiceless
stops. There was only one kind of voiced stop, a lenis one.
>What was the other feature?
As you say, there should be two features distinguishing the
set *[t, t:, d] in Mid IE. One of the qualities was surely
"voice", so we have half the question answered.
The second dimension could have been "aspirate/inaspirate",
"short/long" or even "plain/murmured", with the fortis stops
being the more marked variety. Take your pick.
>If *d was fortis [tt] and *t was [t], how come it was *d that
>became voiced (it should have been *t!).
Perhaps. If so, we should rule out "short/long" as the second
dimension. However, can't added length translate to voice as well?
- gLeN
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