Re: [tied] Is initial *b really rare?

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen <jer@...>
wrote:

>
>
> On Wed, 26 Feb 2003, Glen Gordon wrote:
>
> > [...]
> > The ejectives would have first eroded to *t: and *k:, perhaps
> > being spoken as unaspirated [t] and [k]. Then, they would become
> > voiced *d and *g in a later stage. Throughout, the absence of the
> > correlating labial stop would remain constant until the fracturing
> > of IE when various dialects would adopt their own *b's.
>
> This is a point where I agree almost entirely with Glen. If the
> glottalic values belong to some prestage of the protolanguage, they
> will still leave an uneven system, i.e. a language with *very few*
> cases of /b/. I find it relatively easy to imagine that some b-
> words did come into being in the final prestages of the
> protolanguage. Since there are also processes
> creating voiceless aspirates, the result was a stop system much
> like that of Sanskrit, which is certainly a state of affairs
> permitted by typology.

I find myself being drawn to the glottalic theory despite initial
resistance. I'm not yet convinced that *b is all that rare, but it
certainly occurs less frequently than d or g. I'm still trying to
come to grips with voiced aspirates being so common. I'm wondering if
they can be analyzed as voiced stop + laryngeal.