Re: [tied] Re: Glottalic thought-experiments

----- Original Message -----
From: "Miguel Carrasquer" <mcv@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2003 1:50 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] Re: Glottalic thought-experiments



> I'm not aware of very many cases where we can follow the historical
> development of glottalic consonants,

One could probably find some relevant data in the languages of the Americas and the Causasus.

> but the cases I know seem to favour voicing as perhaps the most likely outcome:
>
> Assuming the pronunciation of Armenian grabar was close to the modern
> East Armenian pronunciation, we have West Armenian /d/ etc. from
> (unaspirated/glottalized) /t/ etc.

I.e. assuming something that we have no real right to assume, if you mean the hypothetical presence of laryngealisation in Old Armenian (BTW, Ladefoged and Maddieson describe the East Armenian sounds in question as weakly glottalised at best and as unaspirated plain voiceless stops in many speakers; if you think they might have lost their glottalisation, East Armenian is an example of /t'/ > /t/ ;-))

> Proto-Afro-Asiatic probably had a large number of glottalized/ejective
> stops and affricates:
> Egyptian Arabic
> labial *p. f b
> dental *t. d t.
> velar *k. q/d_ q
> uvular *q. h./d_ h.
> dental affr *c. d s.
> palatal affr *c^. d z. (= D.)
> lateral affr *L. d d.
>
> Voicing and fricativization are apparently the most common outcomes.

Again, with some tacit assumptions that may or may not be correct (including the assumed validity of Proto-Afroasiatic).

Piotr