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

From: CeiSerith@...
Message: 19350
Date: 2003-02-27

In a message dated 2/27/2003 9:50:41 AM Eastern Standard Time, glengordon01@... writes:


So when we attempt to reconstruct echoic terms in IE, there is no guarantee
that the words are truely (or truly, if you must spell it that way) a part
of Indo-European vocabulary. So unless you can further prove that the echoic
words WERE Indo-European words and not invented later, we don't need to
worry about **b, do we?

   You and Piotr make good points.  I think that the idea of such echoic words arising independently in different branches makes sense.  I would only warn against assuming that they are in some sense "obvious;" a look at the way animal sounds are represented in different languages tell us that.  Because of this, I find it difficult to think that people would see phonetic elements in animal sounds (and in all other echoic words) that didn't already exist in their language.  Still, because of the possibility of independent origination and later modification I don't see this as evidence for the existence of any particular sounds in PIE.

David Fickett-Wilbar