On Wed, 26 Feb 2003 21:28:47 -0000, "Etherman23
<
etherman23@...>" <
etherman23@...> wrote:
>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.
Only in a few cases (Skt. maha- vs. Grk. mega, for instance).
In the same way that glottalic *t? and *k? eventually became *d and
*g^, we can imagine that *p, *t and *k (or *b, *d and *g) eventually
became *bh, *dh and *g^h. Glottalization and aspiration are opposite
poles: an unaspirated sound can become glottalized to make it stand
out more from its aspirate counterpart, and likewise an unglottalized
sound can become aspirated to make it stand out more from its
glottalized counterpart.
In other words, a system:
+glott *p? *t? *k? (*?b *?d *?g)
-glott *p *t *k (*b *d *g )
is essentally equivalent to a system:
-asp *p *t *k (*b *d *g )
+asp *ph *th *kh (*bh *dh *gh)
and to a redundantly marked:
+glott *p? *t? *k? (*?b *?d *?g)
+asp *ph *th *kh (*bh *dh *gh)
All that's needed is a change in emphasis (is the marked feature
glottalization or is it aspiration?). Compare the different
transcriptions used for Armenian (aspirated p` t` k` vs. glottalized
p, t, k) and Georgian (aspirated p t k vs. glottalized p. t. k.), even
if the systems are (as far as Eastern Armenian is concerned) exactly
the same.
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...