Re: [tied] Re: Schleicher's Tale

On Mon, 28 Jul 2003 06:24:22 +0000, Rob <magwich78@...> wrote:

>--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:
>> On Mon, 28 Jul 2003 01:08:47 +0000, Rob <magwich78@...> wrote:
>>
>> Not so difficult as to back and round a back rounded vowel :-)
>
>LOL, perhaps not. :) I thought I had read somewhere that it is more
>difficult to back and/or round a front unrounded vowel than vice-
>versa.

Depending on exactly when the colouring by laryngeals took place, /e/ may
not have been a front vowel at all (it was perhaps earlier something like
schwa /&/).

>Question: initial /a/ and /o/ in PIE daughter-languages (i.e., Latin
>and Greek) are always caused by initial laryngeals in the parent
>language, correct?

No. Initial /o/ certainly doesn't always result from *h3-: it may also
represent *h2o- and *h1o-. Initial a- in the vast majority of cases stands
for *h2e- but I wouldn't exclude thd possibility that there are some cases
of *h2a-, *h3a- or *h1a- with "genuine */a/".

>Also, as for the possibility of "syllabic laryngeals," I would
>imagine that they would be pronounced originally as whispered vowels,
>but then quickly vocalized. What do you think?

Yes. If (one of the allophones of) *h1 was /h/, that's already a neutral
whispered (voiceless) vowel. Syllabic *h2 would have been rendered as a
whispered vowel with retraction of the tongue root, while syllabic *h3
would have been either one (or both, depending on the exact word?) of the
preceding, with added lip-rounding.
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...